Drop down from the ledges, hand over defenses
by Hereticality
Summary: Íþróttaálfurinn and Glanni end up spending Christmas Night snowed in together, and are confronted with everything they'd rather avoid. A one-night stand with a slowburn pace, four different heart-to-hearts, and no sex. Because why not. [Íþró/Glanni, sequel to 'Hear the greater call', Christmas!fic, 8 Chapters]
1. Prologue - Apparition

It's Christmas night, and they meet again after the events of Hear the greater call.  
Íþróttaálfurinn's past makes it back to the surface, Glanni has his own old and new problems to deal with, and they both are confronted with everything they'd rather avoid.  
In which Íþróttaálfurinn tries his best to help, because of course he does, and Glanni (to everyone's surprise but especially his own) find himself helping right back.

(Or also: an one-night stand with a slowburn pace, four different heart-to-hearts, and no sex. Because why not.)

(TW: Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault (not between the two of them), Aftermath of Violence, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Discussion of Assault.)

* * *

The tall, blurry human shape advances towards him.

The falling snow whirls soft around Glæpur's long, lean figure, as the whole of winter walks with him: the sweep of wind and blizzards, the air new and crisp, the warmth of sleeping seeds.

Haloed in the light of a streetlamp, the man's contours shine and glimmer, a woodland apparition in the silent town square. The icy wind makes shards of the tears in Íþróttaálfurinn's eyes, and if the elf felt brave enough to even try, he would struggle to meet his nemesis' gaze.

It is no mistake, nor chance that finds them there, Íþróttaálfurinn knows. Not too fast, not a march or a chase, but Glæpur is coming _to him_. It is a driven, unavoidable hunt.

What a hunter this one makes, with his mouth already red, with his strange gleaming eyes. As he draws closer, Íþróttaálfurinn's elven ears start to pick up the crunch of his thick-soled boots on the powdery snow, fracturing the stillness of the rarefied, snow-bright air. Step by step, louder and sharper, and isn't it sweet irony, that he be the one pursued this time?

But he, too, wasn't hiding, wasn't running. Even if he tried, he couldn't conceal the aching relief of finally being _found_.

Trails too easy to follow have always been nothing but invitations, after all. This is their language, and they could build a literature if they so pleased. Limericks of gesture, poems of duels and dancing glances. Novels of long, breathing stretches of silence, leaden in their emptiness.

It is a known fact that elves urge to move. Thrumming with energy in their every waking hour, they have trouble staying still. But now, he watches the man come towards him, and it all crystalizes in this moment, sharp and crisp and inexorable, in the fear and guilt that mount in his gut with every steadfast step, rooting Íþróttaálfurinn where he sits, on this damp wooden bench. He cannot move, cannot run. He doesn't want to run.

He knows he has been unfair. He knows he has done him wrong, that this night―Christmas night―deserved better. That Glæpur himself deserved better. And he can't help but wonder if the man has come to take his revenge, to repay him with the same coin. Because he would let him. He would absolutely let him.

Across the town square, the clock tower strikes eleven and thirty. Glæpur waits for the peal to quiet, and reality trickles into place as the many facets of him reunite into one, splintered mirror coming whole. The air grows still again.

The apparition opens his red grinning mouth, and speaks.

"What are you doing out here," Glæpur says, voice carried in the icy wind that cuts the damp eye, "all alone like a piece of shit?"

* * *

Basically the Hear the greater call spin-off nobody asked for but I felt compelled to write anyway.  
Set during Jól í Latabæ.  
Title from Eliza Rickman's Coming Up Roses


	2. Hard is the heart that feels no fear

In which an elf has his first Human Christmas (TM), he gets mail, and we dive into a bit of backstory.

* * *

Christmas itself crept towards him in snow-muffled steps. Íþróttaálfurinn had been looking forward to it, yet he didn't catch it stalk closer day by day, night by night.

He had promised the Heroes League an unrivalled degree of availability for most of December—mostly, he'll admit, to keep himself busy. He covered for his sick colleagues, pedalling across the sky like a madman. He spoke at a conference, dressed in trailing robes. He did _paperwork_.

All this, he traded for a few days of having to be nowhere else but around his favourite people. The kids had been asking him for ages, to have a _real_ Christmas with them… with the carols, the tree, the presents, with all the nice human things he only knows because they told him about them.

He requested to spend the human holidays―from noon of Christmas Eve to noon of Boxing Day―in Latibær well back in autumn, to give the League time to organize. Unless an emergency that couldn't be handled without him arose, he was not to be summoned.

When the clearance had finally come―in its neat little mailer, sealed with the League's crest, beaconed to him by his crystal―it was the highlight of everyone's day.

He had dropped into town from twice the usual height, vibrating in impatience and excitement, waving the letter-tube like it was the winning baton at a relay race. The children had crowded him and cheered, chanting, _Íþróttaálfur can stay for Christmas, Íþróttaálfur can stay for Christmas!_ They took turns getting picked up and launched in the air. Nobody could stay still, nobody could stop smiling, the energy burned like a miniature sun in his chest and fuelled him for his next hundred missions.

As the Eve crept closer and closer, the anticipation let him put what happened overseas, on that cold, cold November night, all the way at the back of his mind. He had to. He had to keep himself busy, keep Glæpur—disappeared, yet again, without a trace―from his thoughts. As much as he could, anyway.

The time between Winter Solstice and the turn of the year is always difficult, anyway. It's routine. First, people are in _constant_ danger: the cold, the frozen roads, the unruly weather―it all means more work for the heroes. That, he doesn't mind.

Then, there is the unspoken conflict between spending time with family and obliging duty. And that… he does mind. He has no family of his own, and he has never felt allowed to forget it.

It is the times of rest that hurt him, where he is left surrounded by his fellow elves ―who don't need saving, teaching, or even help―yet alone with that empty space in him that caves in, like a sloping roof. The warmth of his people has always been different, too close, too _knowing_ , part of him and yet not. Just like he is part of them―an elf of the same strain―and yet isn't. He's from a different blood, nobody knows whose.

Elves yearn to move, everyone knows. But never too much, never far enough to sever their connections, to separate families, to forget the smell of one's land. The elves and the land are one, and he is from somewhere else, from the coal mines of the great unknown. Grandmother passed―it's been a few years already―and with her has gone his only link to his adoptive clan.

Not related to any, and without the person who chose to adopt him… it sure is convenient for the League, at least, that he spends all his extra time in his balloon looking for troubles to fix, and never asks for vacation.

It's only the holidays, really, he keeps telling himself. It only hurts on the holidays.

* * *

"Íþróttaálfur!" calls a cheery voice behind him, shaking him from his reverie. "Aren't you like, totally gonna knock?"

Maggi and Nenni, arms loaded with firewood and boxes of assorted decorations, grin at him red-cheeked when he swivels around to look at them.

It is Christmas Eve, still day outside, though not for long. The three of them stand on the stairs at the Mayor's front door, where the little group of his favourites will spend Christmas.

"Right away!" Íþróttaálfurinn says, moving the wicker baskets he's carrying to his left arm in order to knock.

The Mayor's house is all in a bustle. The man himself welcomes them at the door, his towering figure shrouded in a cloud of white flour and oven steam. He ushers them all inside, thanking them warmly for coming, advising them to watch their step: the foyer is a colourful mess of children's shoes.

Íþróttaálfurinn smiles, nudging his cap and fogged goggles up, and takes in the living-room strewn with lights, the Christmas tree almost finished, the piles of pillows and blankets ready for the children's sleepover. The scent of baked treats wafting in the air makes the boys sigh in delight. They flock to the kitchen―where Goggi is already programming a small army of kitchen timers―to help out with the dinner preparations.

He puts down his baskets next to the other supplies, left of the kitchen door. The frost starts to melt away immediately from the heaps of fresh berries and oranges, dewing the bottles of elven apple cider, which thaw in the warmth of the house.

"My, Íþróttaálfur, aren't you cold?" the Mayor asks, patting his bare arm. Before he can answer, the man is already rustling under the wrapping paper scattered on his couch for something. "Would you like a sweater? Solla asked me to pull out all my old stuff anyway… _aha_!"

Straightening, ruddy and triumphant, he shakes out a very worn, very stretched maroon pullover sporting a pattern of white snowflakes and rearing reindeer.

"Festive!" Íþróttaálfurinn laughs. "But it's all right, Mayor, I'm _never_ cold!"

The Mayor is too busy to fret over him right now. He just drapes the sweater over the back of a chair, patting it to signal he can still grab it if he changes his mind. The smell of fresh laundry and mallow-scented soap unfolds from the fabric, wafting its way to him, and it takes all the troubles off his mind for a moment. It's tempting: he's had an appetite for cosiness, lately.

Sometimes, when things have been quiet in town for a while, there is a distinct shift in the way the Mayor treats him, tipping his way the scales of care and protection, as if he were much younger―another of the children that prefer to liven his empty house on Christmas, instead of spending it with their own families. He is grateful that nobody ever asked him how _that_ feels.

The Mayor tugs a rug under the baskets to protect the freshly cleaned floor, and takes something from the catchall tray near the door.

"Oh, but let me give you this," he says, putting a small bubble mailer in his hands, the padded kind used to mail fragile items. "It came in for you, just a couple days ago."

Íþróttaálfurinn thought the melancholy wouldn't find him, if he put enough hills between the elven village and himself, that it wouldn't follow him all the way to Latibær. He kept himself busy, kept his mind away from the alley, away from the stray cat―and yet it found him. It's an old, familiar feeling, but at the same time strange, tinged with a new, murky restlessness.

It found him in the mailer the Mayor handed him, the smell of a cold November night drowning the mallow out.

No date, no return address. Neatly folded inside, still filled with brine and animal fear, his yellow aviator scarf.

* * *

He is starting to wonder if asking for the time off was a mistake.

He could never bring himself to wish for a real emergency, but he sure can hope his crystal could go off by mistake, call him away for a moment. The low, sorrowful keen in his heart is no easy thing to acknowledge and put aside―not with the clouds above him instead of under him, not with so much company around.

There is no doubt over who sent the anonymous mailer. This is exactly how the chase-game got started, back in spring, just after the Latibær Sports Festival.

How nice of Glæpur, he thinks, turning the yellow cloth in his hands, to mail back the scarf he nicked without even washing it. _Never changes, that one._

"Did you forget your scarf somewhere, Íþró?" Halla laughs. "Someone had to mail it back to you?"

The nickname is new: the children have picked it for him because calling him just _Álfur_ , they said, felt rude. _You don't call us_ Human _, or something_ , they said. _You use our nicknames_. From his ancestral elven blood, and from the ex-nameless child in him alike, he appreciates the effort.

"Apparently I did! But it made its way back to me." He grins back, shrugging and tucking the square of fabric in his breastplate with a flourish, and taps his palm over it. "It was waiting for me right here."

Which would have had to be _quite_ the specific prediction on Glæpur's part, he thinks, suspicion stirring. But no… he can't be _here_ too, can he? Íþróttaálfurinn would have known, he would have _felt_ something, and besides, Glæpur wouldn't just _come back_ by himself. Not after what happened, not after leaving him behind without a note. Would he?

"You work too much, man," Maggi tells him from across the kitchen table, crossing the wooden rolling pin and cookie cutter he's handling in his signature move. "When you start forgetting your clothes around… it's totally time for a break, even for you!"

He manages to smile, touched, as the others voice their agreement. "Well, I'm on a break right now with you guys!"

Everyone goes back to carving patterns into the leaf-bread. Yet, over the smell of sugar and bubbling oil, even tucked away, he thinks he can still smell it.

The scent of fear is trapped in the fibres, under the sweat and dust and rusty hint of blood, too weak for human noses to pick up. But for him, it's too distinct to ignore, like a call for help, like his crystal ringing.

The alley rushes back to him, like a bad dream, and he can only thank the heat of the kitchen if nobody notices the blood draining from his face. The trace of cherry juice burns on his lips, and he can do little but try and chew the sensation away.

* * *

He has the vague feeling he's not acting like his usual self. The knowledge is there, in the children's worried eyes, the quiet tone they use to call him back to attention when his mind wanders.

The problem is, at the moment, his usual self is someone he doesn't really know.

Elves urge to move, everybody knows that. It's their energy, what keeps them going. But Íþróttaálfurinn's energy has always been split, forked like the tongue of a snake.

There's a good energy, and it's strong, freeing, open wide in his chest like a sunflower in bloom. It's the life-force that propels him forward, skyward, that makes him want to leap from roof to roof, sweat and play under the deep blue sky. The _other_ energy to move is not _bad_ , per se. It's just _different_ , a kind of fixed, absent restlessness that nobody could ever explain to him. His mind whirls, and his body itches to be somewhere his feet can't run to. His legs bounce, pace, jitter. The coal mines―usually so far from his mind―come back to him with the scorching clarity of yesterday, and he fights to convince himself he's been free for years, _decades_.

It's usually fine. If he is stubborn enough, if he pushes his body long enough, if he stays in the air long enough, the _other_ energy will exhaust itself, give way to the first. Usually.

But what does he do all the time when he feels _good_? Higher jumps, a barrel roll for every step? Racing the children around the house? More words, more topics, more teachings? When it flows, the good energy is his whole self, and he puts no effort into being himself. He's at a loss.

"Maybe he's just tired," he can hear Solla whisper, like he is laid out on a sickbed instead of staring off into the middle distance, knife forgotten in his hand, an anxious spiralling pattern of triangles taking form on the leaf-bread in his hands.

Tired. _Him_. Íþróttaálfurinn, their unstoppable elven hero.

* * *

 _Dinner was nice_ , Íþróttaálfurinn thinks fondly, lying down with his feet up in his moored balloon's basket, watching the sky shiver with the promise of more snow, drifting to sleep with the comfort of a full stomach.

By the time they got the sizzling trays of roast out the oven, the whole house was squeaky clean and in impeccable order. Halla and Solla came back from their last minute shopping trip, and put the new colourful packets under the tree, in a cacophony of giggles. Siggi came back full of stories as usual, and had everyone waiting for Santa any minute.

Íþróttaálfurinn went to grab more firewood and to check on his balloon, as the children finished wrapping the presents and fixed up the last details.

When he returned, the Christmas lights strewn outside illuminated the air, as the day faded to early dusk behind the impeccably clean windows of the Mayor's house.

Also, the children were squabbling: they had all decided to open the presents on Christmas morning― _like they do in the movies!_ ―but now the younger ones had changed their minds, and wanted to open them after clearing the table, as custom.

The elf observed the battle of will with great amusement, and when half a dozen pairs of tearful eyes turned to him for guidance, he suggested they split the presents in two groups, and do both: the ones they had for each other after dinner, and the ones brought by Santa in the night, on Christmas morning.

 _Ah, the magic of compromise_ , the Mayor said fondly, patting him on the shoulder. At least, for the elf's spirit was still troubled, he could still find solace in fixing children's troubles.

The ease continued through dinner. Holidays are the humans' designed times of indulgence, and he had feared his presence might make them uncomfortable. Instead, they happily piled fruits, sprouted bread, broth and fish and vegetable roast (and five different sauces) in front of him, clinked their glasses of elven cider, and they all ate their fill in joyful peace.

After dinner, the Mayor played the guitar. They sang and set the table and played and sang more, the air vibrating with cheer and he felt like he was floating, the Latibær glimmer in his heart shining bright. He felt… he almost felt like himself again, his looming thoughts receding. He felt _welcome_.

Then came the time for presents: Íþróttaálfurinn gifted a lot of books and useful, practical things―but they knew he had been so busy before the festivities, since they had barely seen him, so they forgave him. He was sure that they, too, in the most traditional part of themselves, appreciated the effort.

In return, he got a little whittled wooden thing―an apple? A tennis ball? It didn't really matter, it made his eyes prickle, all the same―that Siggi had made in school. Some socks and books too―Christmas classics tinged with irony from the other boys ―and a very lovely set of ochre-and-black matching scarf and hat―from Solla and Halla―that he immediately put on, pocketing his cap and tugging the goggles on the new one.

They laughed, because, _That's for outside, Íþró!_ But he didn't care. He was awfully warm in the Mayor's house, outside and inside, and wanted to take the feeling with him wherever he was going to go afterwards. Which was… he didn't quite know.

They wanted him to stay for the sleepover, but the space under the window was taken, and he didn't want to explain that that was the only way he would have been able to sleep indoors. He had always been an outdoor type, especially for sleeping, especially at night.

The memory is very old, faded, but all buildings still look like mining tunnels at night, and if he wasn't careful he would start hearing a phantom creak of precarious wooden beams overhead, the squeak of a metal cart, and the imaginary smell of coal and lamp oil will overpower the homely aromas that lingered in the house. He always preferred to be able to look at the sky if he woke up, that's all.

Therefore, he finds himself looking up at the promise of snow, trying to drift off, with all the put-aside thoughts coming back to him.

He pulls the scarf from his breastplate to clutch it in his hands, as he thinks and thinks and thinks―until he fears his ears will start steaming and whistling, like teapot beaks.

He should allow himself just one selfish thought, wrapped in colourful paper and sparkly ribbon, to think on Christmas night. Because it is selfish, he knows, to feel Glæpur's absence so strongly. To feel that he should be there, too, enjoying the humans' warmth.

To feel that he should have let Íþróttaálfurinn be the hero, let him bring him back.

* * *

How did it happen, he wonders, when did Glæpur become so worthy of _worry_ in his mind?

Did it happen in the alley, during the chase-game, or earlier still? When had the interest become less uncomfortable, when had tolerance swelled into fondness, irritation dissipated like foam into the shored rubble? When did he start to _care_?

He didn't even think much of the man, the first time he met him. He had heard of him, the famous criminal―just like Glæpur had heard of him, the Sports Elf _farting around all day_ in his balloon… or so the children said he said.

Their reputations preceded them, huge, daunting, and then there he was, the criminal mastermind of the century, running around like a headless chicken as the elf had his little bit of fun, giving chase just to show off his speed. He meant no harm: the children seemed to be all okay.

A simple criminal like many others, in the end, Íþróttaálfurinn had thought, glancing down at the fainted scammer. Maybe a little more presence and charisma―or so they said. He didn't even have to take him on himself, anyway: the Mayor did it all, with the accidental drop of a sandbag. Nothing remarkable about that first encounter.

Then, Glæpur disappeared overnight from his holding cell.

Not a trace, not a sound, not a footprint, like he was never there at all. No rule has ever been good enough for Glæpur to respect, it seems, not even physics. He vanished into thin air, like he had no idea it should not have been possible.

Upon discovery, the children―more bummed out than scared, really―started telling Íþróttaálfurinn the story in detail.

They all got together to tend to the re-replanted vegetable gardens, knuckle deep in the rich soil and new bags of seeds, and talked about their recent adventure until it grew into the stuff of legends.

Details shifted, colours became vivid and muted, and Glæpur's shimmering disguises acquired a mystic glamour that rivalled the great tricksters of elven lore.

Had Glæpur controlled the town for a couple days, or had it been years? Did he give them stomach-aches and sell them sugar water, or first cursed them and their land, then had a change of heart and blessed them with a miracle cure? Was it nothing but a dirty, giggly rumour that Stina had been spotted trailing up the stairs of his hotel room in a silk robe? Did they return the President's car during the Sports Festival, or did the car also vanish in a cloud of black smoke?

They could remember that Glæpur sang to them, and that they loved the songs, but not recall any of the words. Did they dream the guy up? Was he magic? Was he _real_?

Íþróttaálfurinn was never tired of listening, amused by the new twists the story would take according to which child was telling it. And slowly, gradually, parallel with the children's growing fascination, his interest in the man had also grown.

He started wondering where could he be, what could he be up to. Did he know these children he duped were now climbing over each other to play his role in their little re-enactments? That Halla could imitate his menacing prowl so well she made Siggi cry? That they kept the discarded _Rikki Ríki_ disguise like a sacred relic?

The elf hadn't planned to chase him further, at first: he usually had no need to chase his enemies. Then, the first mailer came.

No name, no date, no return address. Nothing but a newspaper clipping, mentioning that Glanni Glæpur, notorious criminal, had been _sighted_ around Lygaribær.

It went remarkably well with the myth that the Latibær children, creators of legends, had built around him, that Glæpur would be _sighted_ like some mythical creature.

Would Glæpur ever imagine how readily Latibær would welcome him back, at this point? That he, a rootless stray at heart, had made himself a home in the forgiving hearts of these humans?

Maybe it was his own buried wound, the elf reflects, the relief he had felt as a child escaping the clutches of a bad man, having strangers welcome him and adopt him as their own. Maybe it was his own foundling streak that made him give in, give chase, and start their indulgent little game.

During the summer and autumn, as they danced around each other across sea and land, on the twilight crescent between Glæpur's shadows and Íþróttaálfurinn's sunny mornings, he could feel the idea take root in him like a sprouting seed: take him back to the town, to the welcoming strangers ready to adopt him. Take him _home_.

* * *

The growth had been so slow, so gradual, that he didn't recognise it for a while. After the recognition came the fight, as he struggled against himself with the half-dead criminal in his arms.

He remembers, the memories stark in his mind, laying his nemesis down on the little cot in his balloon's basket, pulling out three thick blankets to wrap around him. He still quivered. Íþróttaálfurinn remembers the yellow scarf, still clutched in the man's trembling hand, remembers letting him keep it.

Something unthinkable had happened. He didn't have a clue how to fix it, the very shape of it still blurry in his head, like a monster in the dark. So his mind looped back to the idea, the glimmer of light that Latibær kindles in him. He set course for the town in a fevered rush, as if by moving fast he could outrun the horror, leave it behind.

The pedalling system came together quick―screws tightened, chain on the fastest gear, air flaming in the balloon's envelope. Of the twenty-something hours it took them to cross the Ocean―riding the westerlies into a blessed corridor of open sky, a towering, swirling storm on each side and nothing but angry waves below―he remembers only glimpses.

Of what happened after the landing, too, Íþróttaálfurinn has only glimpses. He must have collapsed in exhaustion, he reckons, woken only by the insistent jingling of his crystal, bringing him back to duty.

Getting them back to the island had been a feat of endurance that, if anything, should be recorded in the League's annals. Pity he couldn't tell anyone he had done it and why, let alone justify the need for rest. Heart heavy with loss, legs screaming, and basket empty, he had gone to help whoever needed him.

After that, with the man's disappearance―vanished into thin air, not a trace, not a sound, not a footprint, as soon as the basket's wicker touched down on familiar black shores―came defeat.

The chase-game was over, and Íþróttaálfurinn had lost, forfeited, given up. Glæpur disappeared, and the scarf disappeared with him. The elf had assumed he was going to keep it, at this point.

And now, in a mailer just like the others―no name, no date, no return address―the scarf suggests a new round is starting. Glæpur wants him to give chase again.

The elf runs the even seams between his thumb and forefinger, to see if he might catch a bit of shadow under his nails, learn some of the secrets kept there. What has this simple square of yellow cloth seen? What mysteries, what horrors?

 _At least he's alive_ , he thought then and thinks now, weak against that simple, overwhelming relief. The scarf in his hands proves it. Alive, and well enough to send him a mailer in his usual, roundabout style.

Even if he has returned to Latibær without― _before_ him, the important thing is that he is alive.

It's just the festivities that get him like this, he keeps telling himself.

* * *

Turns out crossing the Atlantic in a hot-air balloon takes a lot less than I thought, but I liked the idea of the detachable pedalling system too much.  
Someone had to go with the sad af child miner backstory...  
Chapter title from Oh Hellos' Cold is the night.


	3. Your faith was strong - you needed proof

Careful what you wish for, elf.

(In which they argue and it gets _nasty_.)

* * *

When he knocks again at the Mayor's door, after his nap, it's a couple of hours before midnight, and Santa is there. Hard to miss the huge sled parked in the driveway, really. Or the singing.

The children were supposed to be still asleep, but Maggi rushes to open the door to let him in, cheeks all pink from excitement, and half a dozen little voices cheer, _Íþró, Íþró, look who arrived!_

The jolly, red-clad figure of Santa takes up so much of their attention that, for a moment, Íþróttaálfurinn fails to register who _else_ they mean, who else is there, sitting placid in the circle of carolling children.

Glæpur looks up, meeting his eye, and gives him a small finger-wave and a wink.

The world tilts and spins and slips into an uncanny double of itself. Íþróttaálfurinn blinks and blinks, yet he doesn't come awake, nor the strange vision change in any way. He feels like the air in his lungs has disappeared.

"Been a while, _Íþró_ ," Glæpur drawls, smirking like he _knows_. In his mouth, the nickname takes nothing to coat in mockery, in the tang of cherry juice.

The ground is giving away under the elf's feet, and his forearms tingle with the memory of Glæpur's desperate, white-knuckled grip. Only distantly, he knows he is still frozen in the doorway, and the thud of Maggi shutting the door feels a mile away. The room rushes into focus around him, the air vibrating, building and rebuilding itself in his memory, like a fever dream.

"Been a while, Glæpur," he finally manages.

He prays the children's attention is all for Santa right now: his voice wouldn't have fooled a dumb lark. It came out so charged, so low and thick, he has said the man's name like an army wife from those overblown black and white war movies, falling into her husband's arms after a decade-long parting.

Glæpur seems… better, he can't help but notice, the contrast so stark it gives his heart whiplash. He looks _well_ , even, fresh-faced and whole and smiling and—so alive. So close and real. Right _there._ _Finally_ , the army wife croons, deep in the secret, shadowy corners of his voice.

 _We know you're surprised!_ The children say, falling all over each other to explain, sentences starting in one mouth and finishing in another, in a confusing verbal ping pong.

 _Glanni came in―with Santa!—to help bring the presents! And that's a relief, man―otherwise good luck finding him to give him_ his _present!_

"His… present…?" Íþróttaálfurinn asks, lost and so baffled he can feel his eyebrows disappear under his new hat.

Not only is Glæpur alive, he is _in town_. He is in the Mayor's house, celebrating Christmas. In the Mayor's reindeer sweater. And the man is _grinning_ , like he has never been happier, like he's been spending Christmas like this since forever. Between his knees, he cradles a big box wrapped in purple.

"I'm confused," Íþróttaálfurinn says weakly, and the children giggle.

Then, Santa claps his heavily gloved hands and calls them over, summoning the whole of their attention, guiding them into song and dance around the decorated tree. The spinning children, like a zoetrope of information, tell him the story in hushed snippets.

Glæpur had been in town for a while, during Íþróttaálfurinn's busy month, they tell him. A couple weeks at least… though nobody is exactly sure. One day, out of nowhere, they started seeing him sneak around, around the post office and behind the diners at closing time. They started calling him nicknames, and leaving food out for him. No one has had the tactlessness to ask him where he's staying. He hasn't been causing any trouble.

The idea for a Christmas present came from Solla, Íþróttaálfurinn learns, one grain more every time she passes next to him. Everyone pitched in and then she put it together and made it pretty— _but shh!_ , she says, tapping her tiny hand on his forearm, _it's a surprise! He can open it after the carols!_

Solla was the first to forgive, he remembers, back when the legends started taking shape. Glæpur trapped both girls in the sewers, and they spent the time trading secrets, growing closer. Solla would tell the story smiling, unperturbed, with Halla snickering behind her, face as red as her hair. After, the others followed, even the adults, and all of Glæpur's evil deeds started to mollify, his presence a whirlwind of fun and chaos more than a reign of terror, a fresh batch of gossip material rather than actual danger.

Íþróttaálfurinn was dead right: the town was more than ready to welcome Glæpur back. It isn't a new feeling―he's often right―but oh, there are _limits_.

The Mayor had graciously lent his shower, and even, in true Christmas spirit, the sweater Íþróttaálfurinn refused earlier. It's short of sleeve and stretched too wide in the torso, but Glæpur has rolled the cuffs up and made it work; the fabric drapes, falling in knowing, flattering ripples, and Íþróttaálfurinn has to look away. Even from half a room away, he can pick up the mallow-scented fragrance he gives off, like the man himself just tumbled out of the dryer, fluffed out and smelling sweet.

It's almost suspicious, says a little, ugly voice inside him, and his thoughts are spiralling.

The man seems _transformed_ , so cheerful, smiling like everyone's long-lost favourite uncle. They said he came in to _bring presents_. The Glæpur he knows doesn't bring presents.

But Íþróttaálfurinn was the one to assure him he could come back. And he fantasized of bringing him back to the town―longed to, even. But he would have done it gradually, carefully, not like _this_. This is so strange, too much, too close. The children are fascinated by Glæpur, he knows it, and he's sure Glæpur can _tell_. No one is being careful about this.

He wants to clamp all his fondness shut, and question him. _Are you acting again? What are you planning?_

He should have known, really, that his duty to the town and his duty to his nemesis would come to clash, sooner or later. That he wouldn't be allowed to be protective of two forces so contrasting. Maybe the humans will have a way around this, he thinks, anxiety raking his back with chilly fingers.

He knows the Mayor is the gentlest of giants, but that he cares about his town above anything. When the children start singing something that doesn't require the guitar, he forfeits his inner battle, and scoots close.

"Mayor," he calls, in an undertone that betrays his shame, "are you… sure about this?"

"Hm? Oh!" The man raises his bushy eyebrows, like an unforeseen thought just hit him. "Oh my, does it put you in trouble with your people, if we keep him?"

"No, I… this is your decision as a clan―I mean, as a town," Íþróttaálfurinn says, raising an index for emphasis, in the tone he often uses to say, _this is a human matter, and I want no say in it,_ even when he doesn't really mean it. Like right now. "I just… I'm having trouble understanding _why_?"

The Mayor hums pensively, audible over the backdrop of white voices.

"That black suit he had was still here, at the police station, you know?" he starts.

Íþróttaálfurinn sneaks a glance to the black leather sleeves peeking from under the slack sweater, and nods.

"Lolli left it out for him where he'd find it and… you could fit two of him in it now. It's not right, Íþróttaálfur. I don't like seeing these things and do nothing."

Íþróttaálfurinn finds himself unable to look the Mayor in the eye, his ears growing too warm under his new hat. He can feel his leg start to jitter. It feels strange, that the change in him is so evident to others too. That, knowing less than Íþróttaálfurinn knows, they could somehow still know more.

He watches Solla tap Glæpur on the shoulder, and hand him a spoon and a sizable bowl of something―leftovers from the Eve dinner, probably. Glæpur startles at the touch, but then looks up at her like she brought him the light of dawn on the longest night of the year. _This all for me?_ He mouths, not to interrupt the song, pointing emphatically at the bowl and then at himself. The child grins and gives a vigorous nod, pink hair bouncing, and sits the bowl down on the still-wrapped box.

"I know he isn't the grateful sort, this one. He reminds me of those stray cats that don't know anything but the street, you know?" the Mayor says at his side, with a small huff of a laugh. The elf chokes on his saliva and has to clear his throat a couple of times, nodding painfully.

Something growing a little nostalgic in his voice, the Mayor continues, "But he's younger than what I thought at first. Less than thirty, for sure. I just hope that, with a bit of help, he can make better choices in the future, that's all."

Íþróttaálfurinn has no answer aside from a long, awed stare. "I… see," he said thickly.

The thing is, the humans don't _know_. They have no idea what happened, so how can they know how to begin fixing it? And yet, here they are. Clothing, shelter, hospitality. Simple acceptance, and an unbiased helping hand. Maybe that's how you begin to fix the unthinkable.

For all his knowledge and elven instinct, Íþróttaálfurinn thinks, ashamed, he doesn't seem to hold a candle to human intuition.

"Maybe we should have warned you," the Mayor sighs, worried by his silence. "We didn't think we'd be having two sworn enemies under the same roof this Christmas. My deepest apologies, Íþróttaálfur. Can we find a solution?"

The Mayor doesn't want to have to send away either of them, the elf realizes. He cares for both, local hero and local criminal, as though one more lost child at Christmas didn't make much of a difference for him.

"Oh, no, Mayor, I―" Íþróttaálfurinn stammers, patting the man on the back and arm in nervous urgency. He clears his throat a few times, hesitating. "I don't think… I don't think we are _enemies_ anymore. No need to worry."

The man gives him a bright, relieved smile, his eyes disappearing in joyous folds of eyelid. "Ah, this is splendid news!"

Another carol begins, and Glæpur isn't familiar with it, as he doesn't seem to be familiar with any of the Christmas traditions. Nevertheless, he listens with perked ears and a small curl of a grin, sitting cross-legged, bare feet peeking under his leather-clad thighs, rocking to the tempo with everyone else.

There is still half of the food in his bowl, scooped up in a precise line, and Íþróttaálfurinn remembers another of the things that bent him, when tolerance gave to fondness.

There had been times they sat at the same table, during the months of the chase-game, for the sake of pretence or negotiation. And Íþróttaálfurinn would notice it: if the man was distracted enough, he would part his food into quarters, as though someone else was supposed to partake, as though a whole plate was an unbelievable luxury. There, behind the affable smiles and mascara, behind the wit and eloquent speech and lined lips and manicured hands, he could see a glimpse of kinship, could see the ghost of a childhood in poverty look back at him, pale and hungry and haggard.

Then, as he's doing now, the man would wolf down the rest of his plate, like an afterthought, and the feeling would fade. And then as it does now, the fondness lingers, only mildly uncomfortable, always somewhat painful.

The restlessness in him thrums and jitters―the other energy but different, stronger, unquenched by all the sit-ups he pulls in time with the music, to everyone's laughter.

He cannot bend his instincts to ignore the suspicion. Something's wrong about this strange, sudden truce. This is all going too easy, too carelessly.

* * *

After the disappearance, unable to leave the matter alone, Íþróttaálfurinn started to trace back the steps of what happened before he reached Glæpur overseas, to trace the shape of the unthinkable, give it form, give it a body to fight.

 _Only jailed_ , he would impose on himself. Jail time was all he allowed himself to wish on the attackers, no matter how hot his blood boiled, how tight his fist clenched.

This could never be about revenge, he tried to reason, it couldn't be death-hunts and torn limbs and heads smashed into walls. It was never about his own needs and instincts, and Glæpur never _asked_ to be avenged. It was about _justice_ , and preventing the culprits from doing further harm. _Jailed_ would be a just punishment. It is a just punishment.

No matter how gentle it seemed, to merely lose one's freedom, compared to the evil committed. Compared to finding Glæpur in that alley, hiding among the other strays and waiting to die. Compared to that splintered, aching laughter that resonated in his bad dreams. Compared to the low keening sound he made in his sleep, curled up so tight he made Íþróttaálfurinn's joints ache in sympathy, clutching the scarf like a lifeline but flinching away from him, like his touch was fire.

Doing his research, between one mission and the next, he heard voices, just like before―even _more_ hushed, halting, secretive―as if they thought the disappeared man could be listening from somewhere. This time around, in the usual places he prowled for the trace of Glæpur's passage, the men weren't leering anymore. Their eyes were distant, nostalgic, like nightshade missing the moonlight.

No one had heard of Glæpur since he left the island, Íþróttaálfurinn gathered. Some assumed he was taking a break, some that he turned a new leaf, some would swear he had died overseas.

Pressed further, they sneered at him like he was green. _Don't you know what happens there, elfling?_ they asked him, smiling. _If he went so far out, with no contacts and all the debt he's in, he's done for, that one_.

 _Even if he went to prison?_ he asked. Some of the people he brought to justice in the past had been almost eager, as the same way a cage keeps you in, it also keeps everything out. Almost everything.

The men laughed. _If he's in, he's already dead for sure._ They said there will be a bounty on his head, or the equivalent, like blood in the water. And sure, they said, the streets are full of sharks, but so are the prisons, and so are the blue uniforms.

 _They make criminals here_ , he remembered Glæpur say, and the pieces fell together.

It had been _calculated_ , Íþróttaálfurinn had realized as the horror―never outrun―washed back to him and left him gasping. Not just cruel, spontaneous, misguided. The act came from the very people sworn to keep order in those human cages. Premeditated, carried out with the weight of authority. It had meant intimidation, or blackmail, or punishment―or merely the squalid circumstance of a murder attempt. And likely, Glæpur ran immediately because he knew it was only the beginning, that human law meant nothing to these oath-breakers.

Íþróttaálfurinn hated to imagine how common a thing it was, how many others were harmed the same way, every day.

So, he donned his ceremonial robes and spoke up. At least, the stink of broken oaths tipped over the already overflowing pile of crimes, completing a picture ugly enough to make a case for the League to look into: the representatives of the overseas division listened, nodded gravely―pale and queasy but not surprised―and took measures.

The informers, now he saw a little differently. All those that smiled a bit too much, he wanted to question again until they cracked. Was Glæpur in hiding with someone? Had the man fled his protection to trust these leering men that spoke of his death and laughed? He didn't dare ask if they, too, had been paid for any favour, had loaned Glæpur any time.

 _A golden throat, that one has,_ was the only, enigmatic answer they would give when asked about their association with the man. It was so unified, like a prepared answer.

Was it an euphemism? Was it a code Íþróttaálfurinn didn't know? He had let it go, tired of those patronizing glances. He had to leave it shapeless.

* * *

As Santa prepares to leave―to continue his deliveries with midnight approaching―the children say their thanks and goodbyes, and Glæpur sneaks away to the kitchen with his emptied bowl. Íþróttaálfurinn has followed him before realizing his feet have moved.

He doesn't know what he'll say to him. Maybe he just needs to be near him a moment, just enough to know that he is real, really there, really alive. Enough to ask him, ask him―

When he gets to the kitchen, though, the bowl is there―dirty on the pile of clean flatware laid out to dry―and the man isn't. Searching the house is as quick as it is fruitless. His frustration rises and his intuition says, clear: _leave right now_. He doesn't listen.

* * *

When Íþróttaálfurinn gets back to the kitchen, Glæpur is there like he has never moved. Stretching up to rustle in the top shelf of the pantry like a very large, willowy meerkat in a second-hand Christmas sweater, knee shoved indifferently up on the counter.

"Glæpur."

His name comes out dry this time, matter-of-fact, like a thing and not a feeling. The man startles, slipping off in the hurry to wheel around and face him.

"Why, _hello_ ," Glæpur chirps, as three pairs of spare oven mittens rain on him. Like it's his own kitchen, arms open wide, he offers, "Can I get you anything?"

Íþróttaálfurinn sucks in a breath and steps up to the sink, like he's tiptoeing around a secret, a _thing_ lodged untold in the space between them.

"I could probably use a chamomile," he sighs.

"Couldn't we all," Glæpur says thoughtfully, opening another cabinet, finding mugs on the first try. "But personally, I'm partial to hot cocoa. Been craving it all week."

Íþróttaálfurinn bounces on his heels, thrumming, every scrap of information on their time apart fuelling the restlessness in him. Glæpur makes no comment, telegraphing the wont of it.

The elf looks at him move around, find a saucepan to melt a dollop of leftover chocolate sauce into some milk, fill up the kettle―for him―in the meantime. His guts squirm, warm and uncomfortable.

"How do you know your way around the Mayor's cabinets so well?"

Glæpur halts just a moment, metal spoon missing a stir and scraping jarringly in the side of the pot.

"Lots of kitchens are alike," he evades, with a vague shrug. He's confused as to why the elf would even need to ask; it has always been plain that Glæpur knows indoor spaces the way a butcher knows animal anatomy.

But, under Íþróttaálfurinn's stubborn stare, he huffs. "What? He said I could _make myself at home_. Love thy neighbour. It's a Christmas thing, right?"

"That's… it's just politeness, Glæpur. It's not meant to be taken literally."

"Well, he should stop saying that, then." Glæpur gestures to the spoon with his free hand. "I'm just a weary traveller making himself hot cocoa."

The brown liquid in the pot simmers unevenly now, creating an unpleasant oily film on the surface. The smell alone overpowers the senses with its sweetness. Íþróttaálfurinn thinks how strange it is, to offer hospitality and not mean it; knowing the Mayor, there is even a good chance that he actually meant it.

Caving in to the need to do something, he starts washing the dirty bowl. Glæpur just glances companionably at him out of the corner of his eye, unbothered, taking a moment to throw the mittens in a pile back on the top shelf. The fuzzy sleeve of his sweater brushes warm against the elf's elbow.

When he speaks, Glæpur's voice reaches him as if through a dense fog. "Do elves _do_ Christmas, Íþró?"

"We're more of a Winter Solstice kind of people," he answers, even if he knows the question is only meant to distract him, deflect his disapproval. Glæpur concedes him a low hum.

Then, he turns suddenly, pointing at him with the dripping spoon, eyes glinting with complicity―and Íþróttaálfurinn gets a sudden, painful glimpse of the chase-game, and the man's old self.

"So, listen," he says. "You're just as baffled as me, right? All the _socks_ , and dancing and trees that sting right in the middle of the living-room… this shit is _weird_ , right? Am I alone out here?"

"No, this is my first Christmas as an insider, too," he hurries to say, embarrassed for no reason. "And I… do prefer trees when they're outside."

"Right?" Glæpur says, and _grins_. "So weird."

He looks at the man pour the lumpy concoction into one of the mugs, flutter about for sugar, find it, scoop it in by the spoonful. There is something mesmerizing, in the way Glæpur can instantly take over all the spaces that don't belong to him.

The elf's ears feel increasingly, unnervingly warm under his hat. They are in the Mayor's kitchen, on Christmas Eve, talking about the equivalent of the weather. More than friends, less than acquaintances, the air between them hangs unbalanced, between the awkward and the overly familiar. As if the distance Glæpur put between them by running was still all there, compressed, smothering.

He could ask him a hundred different questions right now and, all wrapped up in his amiable façade, he's pretty sure Glæpur would answer. But only one presses in his throat like a lump of tears, only one stings his mouth on its way out.

"Glæpur," he breaks, resolve giving in to urge. "Where have you been?"

"Me? In trouble, as usual," the man answers, with no hesitation.

And instantly, he knows he has overstepped. The game has changed, the space doesn't belong to him anymore. He feels he had never had clearance to ask such things, not even to tease. Already in too deep, to close, too knowing.

"You… disappeared," Íþróttaálfurinn presses on anyway, attempting not to sound hurt, failing miserably.

Once he meets Íþróttaálfurinn's eye, Glæpur's apparent ease falters. The storm is asleep for now, dormant in his restless eyes, but still there, waiting.

"It's what I do," Glæpur smirks. "Had to feed those convenient rumours about my death, somehow, didn't I?"

It shouldn't come as a surprise, how much he knows. He has his ways, he's always been well-informed, Íþróttaálfurinn thinks. How could he have survived otherwise? And yet.

Then, of course, there is the _voice_. Glæpur is talking, words growing distant in the elf's mind as he focuses more on the quality of his voice, what is different in it. It's higher and clear and pleasant, almost lilting, completely removed from Glæpur's private raspy drawl.

Something from the past comes back with it, something from those times they found themselves allied in their chase-game, and for the greater good Íþróttaálfurinn made himself a conman's accomplice. And, worst of all, enjoyed it.

"You're doing that thing with your voice," he interrupts, cutting off the end of his empty ramble about the weirdness of Christmas, the logistical impossibilities of Santa's travels that only adults muse about.

With a fluting chuckle, Glæpur feigns candour. "Oh? What thing?"

"The _thing_." Íþróttaálfurinn gestures, his own tone rising in imitation. It doesn't work, because his voice is naturally pitched higher. And because he was never good at imitations. "The sweet-talking thing. The _distract this mob boss with anecdotes until he postpones the execution_ ―thing."

"That made an impression, huh," Glæpur sneers, dropping the voice to its natural, harsh timbre. "Glanni Glæpur, criminal mastermind, modern Scheherazade."

It's a relief to hear, for such a drastic change. It doesn't become him, this affected courtesy and delicacy, it never did.

"What are you _doing_ here, really?" Íþróttaálfurinn asks, and he can feel his own face tense, has to concentrate to uncurl his hands.

Glæpur gives him a defiant look. "Figuring out this kettle."

He sets his mug down to turn his back and poke around the appliance. He finds the switch on second try, and the iron coils glow red through the water and transparent plastic.

Íþróttaálfurinn takes a step closer. "These people are trying to see something different in you, Glæpur," he says low. "The Mayor himself is taking a leap of faith. The children actually _like_ you."

"Psh," the man scoffs, dropping the last of his friendly act. "We both know I'm nothing but the latest distraction."

"You'd better not disappoint them," he has gritted out before he could think it through.

He should have known that type of arrogance wouldn't work. Doesn't work with kids, why would it work on the second most stubborn creature on earth? The man's eyebrows rise, and his mouth instantly curls at the corners, pinching in the middle over his long teeth, in the telling way of when he's holding back from outright laughing in someone's face.

"Indeed? And, pray tell, what are you going to do to me if I do?" he asks, taking a step forward of his own, getting unsettlingly close, a new fearlessness in his eyes. "If these _suckers_ want to give me free stuff, I'll take what I can get. By the time they tire out and come around to collect, I'll be long gone."

The sweet scent of mallows and dryer sheets laces then with something deep and sour, something that brings Íþróttaálfurinn back to that night, and the cold desperation he warded off with his own body heat, to the tears he dried with careful fingers.

It was then, he realizes, when Íþróttaálfurinn lowered all of his defences to come to his rescue, that Glæpur knew he had won the chase-game, that his nemesis would never be able to fight him again without holding back. Íþróttaálfurinn is compromised, has been for a while, and Glæpur _knows it_. In his layers of cloth and armour, the elf feels horribly, hopelessly naked.

"And that's been working well for you, hasn't it?" he spits, a defensive hiss through his teeth.

At this point, when Glæpur shifts and he notices, just out of sight, the black burlap bag leaning half-full by the counter, he is less fazed than he thought. No gratitude or regard, nothing unexpected. A stray that knows nothing but the street, and will never know anything more.

"You're wasting your second chance," he says, tone an embanked evenness, "taking advantage of genuine kindness like this. And second chances don't come around every day."

"Second motives instead, we got to spare, don't we, my time-loaning hero?" Glæpur rebuts. "You of all people should know I don't believe in anything _genuine_." He pauses to smile, a nasty little grin, sharp yet miserable in its baseness. "I _did_ come in for the presents, but you have to admit the Mayor's got silverware too nice to leave alone."

Íþróttaálfurinn has never met before someone made of so many different people, all pulling him into that strange, painful intimacy. The favourite uncle of his children, the free-spirited schemer he chased around a summer, the keening broken thing he wanted to hold until the pieces came together. He is a man fractured, multiple, and for a moment he catches a glimpse of the abyss behind those transparent eyes, the shadow deep down in some unnatural, bottomless hollow.

"I don't understand," he sighs, shaking his head. "You were going to ruin Christmas for them. They let you in, fed you, you're wearing clothes off the man's back―how can you betray their trust like this?" Teacher-voice hiding the tremble, he clips, "We expected better from you."

Glæpur all but snorts at him.

"First off, that sounds like your problem and not mine. Second, you should have seen your face earlier: _you_ weren't expecting to see me at all, let alone better behaviour. And look," he says, voice lowering and coating in unpleasant smugness, "they knew who I was when they invited me in, alright? If their kindness is conditional to my behaviour, can you _really_ call kindness?"

" _Yes_ ," Íþróttaálfurinn grits out, affronted. Somehow, he is starting to feel like the one in the wrong. Rebelling, mule-like, against the feeling, he retorts, "That's why you came back here, isn't it? No one of your little criminal friends to take you in, after you escaped me?"

Glæpur leans back from him, drawing up to his full height. He peers at him down the length of his nose, evaluating, allowing himself a slow, deliberate sip from his mug. The air chills.

"Hm, hadn't realized you were keeping me prisoner," he says after a beat. His cold demeanour cracks in a slow, leery grin. "If you must know, I went down to Storíbær, and my acquaintance, I assure you, was just _thrilled_ to see me."

"I see," Íþróttaálfurinn hisses.

He hasn't spoken yet, and he already wants to take back the words that just formed in his mind. He can see the trap laid out, every cog of it, every dangled bait. He wants to set it off anyway.

He says, "And you bought some _time_ off him too, I imagine."

Glæpur's breath actually hitches. Not a gasp, not full-blown shock, but rather a pause, a bad surprise.

"So, this is how it is," Glæpur says low, room temperature dropping from lukewarm to freezing. "And here I was, thinking you had scraped me off the sidewalk out of good old pity. For _shame_ , Íþró."

He leans further back, eyes narrowing, away from the words are out there now, in the charged air between them. Íþróttaálfurinn's eyes follow his hands when they come to chest-level, still clutching the mug.

"It's good to know that's the idea you have of me now, anyway. And you know what? I did," Glæpur continues, voice softer and deadlier, when the elf makes no retort. "I bought all the time I needed. That should teach you not to stick your expectations where they don't belong."

Íþróttaálfurinn is still looking at his hands. They are always looking for something to do: creasing edges of fabric between his fingers, feeling textures, stroking, kneading. It's not fidgeting, Íþróttaálfurinn knows—it never seemed linked to nervousness. Rather, his hands are always _worried_ , yearning to be in the making of things, nail-tip to heel, making, doing, bending rules. Glæpur's long fingers move even in his sleep, twitching, like a drunk pianist.

Now, the ever-moving hands hold shock-still, clasped around the mug, and he has seen that white-knuckled grip only once before.

"I…" he starts, but he has nothing to continue with.

Drily, Glæpur cuts him off, "And if you don't want to hear loaded answers, you've got to stop asking me loaded questions."

He glances up, meeting the man's unflinching eye, and he finds something there, a confirmation. Something fragile like glass, barely holding together.

Seized by urgency, before the other can speak again, the elf blurts out, "I just thought… that what happened was going to _change_ something —open your eyes a little!"

The man jolts, like something has hit him. The mug slips from his grip and Íþróttaálfurinn has to spring to catch it. He makes it, just barely. He breathes out over the spilled cocoa, splattered on the crisp tiled floor.

Then Glæpur speaks, his voice a low, lifeless monotone. "Are you suggesting," he says, "that it makes for an effective way of reforming criminals? That it should have made me see the wrong in my ways? Teach me a _lesson?_ "

In complete discordance, his body coils back, tendons in his forearms jumping in tension, an unpleasant, off-kilter twitch in his jaw and the corner of his mouth. The parts of him seem about to come undone and scatter, like they cannot reconcile with each other, with what the elf said to him.

Íþróttaálfurinn grabs a rug, crouching down to fix the mess, and avoid whatever unnameable truth is baiting him in Glæpur's eyes, avoid confronting how much damage he has done.

"No, that's… that's not what I meant," he tells the floor, weak to his own ears, vision going blurry. He has done it―he has brought up the unthinkable in the worst possible way, he has stomped all over that fragile thing barely holding itself together.

"It's what you said," the man hisses, voice knife-like. "And mind you, many would agree. Most, in fact."

Something snaps. The words pour out as Íþróttaálfurinn swats the dirty rag in the sink, airing the dark stains like all his mounted frustrations.

"Oh, as if I _actually_ knew what happened," he hisses, and as he voices it, the doubt breaches through the gap suspicion has wedged in his defences, overcoming him. "You make me do your bidding, then disappear, then reappear here, conning these people again like it's _nothing_. Too many inconsistencies, Glæpur."

"Wha―my _bidding_?" Glæpur asks, sounding _lost_ , giving up all pretence of calm and control. "You _stole_ me away on your death trap like there was not a moment to lose, and now you—don't _believe_ me…?"

A noise reaches them from the living-room, making them both jump. The children are coming back in.

"Hard to know what to believe, if I have to rely on _you_ for answers," he says stubbornly, even though he can see the hand in his line of view grip the counter like it wants to leave indents in it. "Might have been _all_ one of your cons, for all I know."

There are a thousand explanations for the bite-marks―Íþróttaálfurinn must have jumped to conclusion. A game gone wrong, a mere fight, even an _agreement_. Maybe, he thinks wildly, what came out of the League's investigation was true for all those others, but was it for this miserable, ungrateful stray, so ready to buy time off anyone? Maybe he had an interest in having those men imprisoned―some grand scheme, and the elf has been his pawn all along. He made the entire League his pawn, from their corner of the world all the way across the Ocean. Played them all like a whole orchestra of fiddles.

"You were there," Glæpur says, in a whisper between dangerous and bewildered. The chained storm puts an irate tremble in his voice, ringing bare and tinny. "You were _there_. You _saw_ me try not to claw my own guts out―what more _proof_ did you want? Should I have shown you my―"

"Don't you dare―" Íþróttaálfurinn interrupts, throwing an alarmed glance to the door behind him.

"Did you need to see the damn _blood_ down my leg―?"

Here it is, the faceless thing, bared like a bandage ripped. His pulse hammers in Íþróttaálfurinn's head, louder than a drum.

"Glæpur," the elf gasps, stunned, reeling, "the _children_ —!"

"Of course," the man echoes hollowly, icy calm coming back like a wall around him. His eyes have gone fixed, distant. "The _children_."

As if summoned, it's right then that the children call, loud and cheery from the living-room, for their new favourite _distraction_ to come back to them.

Face still as stone, careful indifference draped over his features, the man shoulders past him and makes his way back to his unaware audience.

Something was off in his tone, something feverish and frenzied, something half on the run. Confronted with the elf's unexpected retaliation, he didn't seem prepared to back up his own bluff, and Íþróttaálfurinn can still barely process what he has forced him to spit out.

Mechanically, as if the objects he sets back into order and proper place were all the things he cannot control, he starts to tidy up the kitchen. He washes, dries, and puts away, breathing slowly evening out, pushing out the restlessness with every exhale, until the burlap bag left on the floor is the last thing left out of place.

He approaches it tentatively, as if it were some wild creature ready to bite, ready to show him how terribly wrong he's been.

It's almost a relief, really, to find it filled with the Mayor's silverware.

* * *

The carolling will go on a bit longer, they all have decided.

The elf observes, between disturbed and fascinated, the humans shift in the room. Slowly they are converging to Glæpur, like magnets to iron, until the singing offers a pause and the children can plead in unison, _Glanni, Glanni, sing us something!_

Called to stage, an invisible switch flicks inside Glæpur, swapping the hollow stone mask for lively, wide-eyed surprise.

"Oh my, I don't know any of these Christmas things!" he says, hand to his cheek. To the children's wheedling, he raises a placating, outstretched palm. "Okay, okay, pipe down and let me think…"

Head tilted as if trying to listen to a distant sound, scrunching up his face in concentration, he visibly rakes his brain for something. Siggi and Nenni are leaning forward so much they will fall over when the idea comes, Íþróttaálfurinn predicts.

"Aha!" And there it is, brightening the man's face like a ray of sunshine, a smile wide like a blade in the elf's chest. "I got something, but it might be… inappropriate," he demurs, glancing up at the Mayor as he graciously helps the boys up on the couch.

"Sing it anyway!"

"As long as there are no bad words," the Mayor grants, with a cheerful shrug. The children giggle.

Glæpur grins, straightens his back, and takes a deep breath in.

It starts with a hum, and from the hum alone Íþróttaálfurinn can tell it isn't a happy song. And then, the words start quiet, almost shy, whispering of the vague things all human songs are about. Battle, the divine, and love. Mostly, it reminds Íþróttaálfurinn of the snow falling soft on the ground, keeping the sleeping seeds safe.

Glæpur's powerful baritone gains momentum with the violence of the second verse, and the elf loses the thread of the words almost immediately, taken away by the deep notes, earthquake waves into Íþróttaálfurinn's chest. He cannot help but think… that it is wrong of him to be listening to this, to this intimate thing sung with more emotion than the man wants to put in it.

He closes his eyes, letting the song transport him away, and the world blooms green behind his eyelids. Slowly, the air transforms, Glæpur pulling the children's voices from their throats with a director's stroke, and from the half dozen people huddled in the living-room comes the harmony of sound of a whole choir, pale cream walls reverberating like trees of a sacred forest. If the elf strains, he can hear the leaves rustling to the rhythm, whispering _hallelujah_.

The echoing, repetitive chorus surrounds him, slip around and inside him, like a rising tide soaking all the places he hasn't visited in years. It is a cruel song, he realizes, feeling his eyes burn. It speaks of torn love, and betrayal, and faith, and treats all of them with the same solemn grace, Glæpur's voice vibrating around the low, mournful notes.

When he opens his eyes, Íþróttaálfurinn takes in the human group sitting in a circle, a single entity united by music, and the room feels like it contains the entire universe. The harmony of their voices fills his lungs and transports him away, so far, far from everything. His mind goes back to the village, to that care that is too close, too knowing. To the winter lights kept alive day and night in the longhouses, clans and families like a net of luminous guidance in the long long night, spinning thread and tales together all winter.

And, here and now the realization comes to him, as cruel as the words of this mournful song: for however much he can try to take care of these humans—shield them from danger and teach them and help them—in the end, only humans will know what's best for another.

His two contrasting, irreconcilable longings melt and burn in his spirit, and he dares wonder―how much damage has he done, with his careless words, to make him sing something so heart-wrenching? In a room full of his dearest people, he wishes he were alone with the iron grip in his chest.

In the children's cheering and applause―as the man grins and bows, faking modesty―the strange bubble of deja-vu bursts. It leaves the elf guilty, heartsick, kicked back to the present like a harsh awakening.

The children want to know how Glæpur has learned this song. When he answers he picked it up from the radio while overseas, of course they flock and ask him to tell stories of his bad deeds while there. And the man grins, not looking at him so pointedly he might as well have looked.

Glæpur claps his hands together, rubbing complicity between his palms, and then releases it, drawing everyone in. He doesn't have to do much to make the stories interesting, as anything is bound to tumble into chaos wherever he's in the proximity. But he has a way of telling stories, a grandiosity that makes everyone feel privileged to be part of it, even if only as an audience.

He remembers all of the children's names. He says things like, _You'll like this, Halla, dear_ , and then, _Nenni, cover your ears, this is about grand theft_. He remembers these six children, among all he has tricked and scammed, like they are his, somehow. Íþróttaálfurinn lets his mind float away at times. He remembers many of the anecdotes: he was present, although nobody in this room knows. His stomach has filled with ice.

"And this is why, dear children," Glæpur is saying, solemn, "bad things happen to bad people."

"D-do they?" Halla asks, sounding a little more than worried. Her changes towards good behaviour and tentative steps toward friendship―other than Solla, of course―are all very recent. Íþróttaálfurinn allows himself to throw the man a wary glance.

"Why, indeed, Halla, dear! Take _me_ , for example," Glæpur says, pointing at himself with a flourish of both hands. "I am a very evil man, who does very evil things."

"You did put me in jail," the child observes, staring off into the distance for a moment. Darkly, she adds, "Where I rotted my youth away."

The others snort. Íþróttaálfurinn recalls that the first version of the story the children told him―probably closer to what actually happened―had Halla stay in the police station holding cell for a night to say the longest. Yet, Glæpur is nodding in self-satisfaction, even graciously.

"Of course I did." He leans back in a full-face frown of confusion. "Wait… did I?"

"And… bad things happen to you?" Halla presses on, undeterred, chewing on her lower lip.

"Oh, all the time," Glæpur says, swapping the confusion for a thin, affable smile. Íþróttaálfurinn feels a shock of fear course through his veins.

"For example, here I am," he continues, giving a theatrical sigh. "Stuck inside, with all of you annoying brats. On _Christmas_! Can you imagine a crueller fate?"

The children supply crueller fates, from reasonable―death, prison―to perplexing―my Granma's house, school, _Antarctica_ ―to… _Siggi_.

"In the pot. With the brussels sprouts," the boy says, quietly, intensely. Silence befalls.

"You got a point," Glæpur concedes, between magnanimous and concerned. "So, remember, kids: if something bad happens to you―like _brussels sprouts_ ―it's probably because you are a bad person who does bad things."

The children giggle nervously, except Siggi who is still staring off into space. And Halla, who is still actually concerned about her fate as a reformed bully.

"You aren't a bad man, Glanni," Solla says warmly, reaching to pat the man on the head, as one would a loyal family dog. Glæpur leans towards her indulgently, yet visibly perplexed. "You did put my best friend in prison, where she rotted her youth away… but nobody is bad, on Christmas."

"Oh, well… thank you?" he tries, sounding less smooth than he probably intended, his wolfish grin just a little bit forced. Solla grins back.

"But is that true, Íþró?" Halla asks then, bouncing in front of him as he absentmindedly balances on his hands, crossed legs a couple of inches off the floor, startling him and making him fall seated. "If something bad happens, is it because you're bad?"

"Absolutely not… he is teasing you, Halla," he says, with as much of his normal tone he can muster. "Sometimes, bad things can just… happen. To anyone."

"But, isn't that unfair?" Nenni points out. He has always been very concerned with the fairness of things. Siggi just nods vigorously.

"Life's unfair, kiddo," Glæpur drawls, twirling a candycane around his index finger and poking Siggi's nose with it, making him giggle.

Íþróttaálfurinn takes in a breath that shudders all the way to his lungs.

"And sometimes… people won't be of any help. Even the ones that were supposed to understand. Even the ones that you trusted, because you thought they would be careful," he says, voice thick. Everyone can see him blinking away tears, he knows it. "They'll mess up, breaking your trust… and you have to remember… it's not because you're bad. It's not your fault."

He dares meet Glæpur's eye and finds the abyss again, an empty nothing but for a calculating edge. His vision clouds with tears, and he shoots to his feet faster than ever.

"Íþró…" Solla asks, and it was only a matter of time, really. The children have fallen silent. "Are you… alright?"

"Yes, of course!" he chirps. "I just have to… go check on my balloon a moment, just to make sure it's tied down securely, you know? The Mayor won't be so kind as to fly it back this time."

He laughs nervously. The children manage to smile a little. It is a poor excuse, and he feels that everyone can tell. He always ties the balloon down securely when he is mooring for a while, they know that.

"Looks like it's picking up," the Mayor says, glancing out the window as the elf all but runs to the door. The snow flutters, still calm, but the shiver in the wind promised the raging snowstorm to come. "Maybe you should take the time to deflate it?"

Íþróttaálfurinn feels a lump come up to his throat, caught between gratitude and humiliation, and just nods. The mournful, gut-wrenching energy of the song is still buzzing around him, a vibration he can feel tingle in his scalp, his eyes, the palms of his hands. He tries very pointedly to not look at anyone, especially at Glæpur.

 _Hurry back, Íþró! It's almost Christmas!_ the little voices call after him. He can't look at anyone, just manage a weak smile and hope it is enough. Is it better to be the one to disappoint the children, or to scare them half to death by _crying_ in front of them?

 _Don't be sad_ , _children_ , he heard the Mayor say. _It might take him a while. But I'm sure Íþróttaálfurinn will be back with us first thing tomorrow morning!_

He doesn't dare look back.

* * *

Notes: Íþróttaálfurinn is a mess. Glanni has no housetraining and gives the worst life advice. A match made in hell, which is, incidentally, where this chapter is from.

In Jól í Latabæ Glanni breaks into the house to steal the presents, Santa catches him but decides to show him how nice Christmas is when he learns that Glanni never had a Christmas (or a single present!) in his life ;;

Chapter title from Cohen's Hallelujah. The version Glanni sings is this one (that came out in 2016 but shhh) but imagine it with a Tom Waits rasp, and the choir from the Sense8 Christmas Special version.


	4. Which way the river bends

A strange exchange between two men who are the worst at apologies.  
(In a blizzard)

* * *

Half an hour to midnight, the clock tower says.

The wooden bench feels cold as iron through the giving fabric of his pants. In the damp chill of cooling sweat and snow melting on the heated skin of his arms, Íþróttaálfurinn admits it to himself: he has fled. He's been nothing but a coward, and a cruel one too.

He ran to his balloon, to take care of the grain of truth in his excuse. The snow _is_ picking up, the balloon _does_ need to be tended to. He might have ruined Christmas, but he won't lie to the children on top of it all. So, he deflated the envelope and, in quick practiced gestures, folded it up, set it in the basket, and covered everything with a strong, secure tarp. If his hand occasionally had to shoot up and dry his nose and eyes, well, he tried to ignore it.

After that, without a distraction, the jitter in his legs had grown unbearable. He gave in and dashed off through the deserted streets, the playground, the town square, pushing himself enough to break a sweat. When he finally stopped at the bench, panting out white steam and wet, strangled sobs, he looked up to the snowfall and admitted his defeat. He didn't know when the tears came. Just out of the house? While he tried to outrun his own faults once again? Maybe they had been there for weeks, somewhere in him like heavy rainclouds, just waiting for something to make them burst.

Now, his only company are the clock tower chiming away the time, the seeds planted in the children's vegetable garden, sleeping safe under the fresh snow, and the warm light from nearby windows, neighbours awake in the night, reading or playing or celebrating. They almost sear the eye, those squares of yellow light, too sharp against the vivid blue of snow in the shadows. Yellow had never felt like such a lonely colour, before.

His chest hurts like wood splintering, the aviator scarf burning accusatory in his breastplate. He wraps his arms around his middle, lowers his head down between his knees, letting the wind freeze the tears on his face. He waits.

Then, as two black, thick-soled boots enter his blurry field of vision, something new creeps into him, under the guilt and sadness. Fear shocks him in place, paralyzing, and he wonders if this is how he made Glæpur feel, when Íþróttaálfurinn cornered him in that alley. Only, Glæpur had wanted to be found―though his hope was slight, he was waiting for him.

But, as any easy trail is nothing but an invitation, it occurs to him that he, too, might have been waiting for Glæpur all along.

Glæpur knows his lines, as he always does, he always _knows_. He has hunted him down and now he's found him and he's grinning bright in the snowfall, shrouded in that lonely light, and he's asking him, _What are you doing out here, all alone like a piece of shit?_

And it sounds like only the first of a series of poignant questions, and this time Glæpur is the one to start a dangerous line of questioning. And Íþróttaálfurinn should have an answering quip now, shouldn't he? But he has nothing but the shudder in his bones and eyes that can't meet his―and now he's the one who's wasting a rare second chance.

Glæpur isn't a man of patience, yet he finds in himself the mercy to break the silence again.

"So," he says, throwing the question like a bone to a stray dog, "that bad, huh? My singing?"

Íþróttaálfurinn can't find his voice. He looks up at the man but not at his eyes, contemplating the grin in Glæpur's voice still audible through the light wheeze of exertion. The light of the streetlamp behind him blots out his expression, and the elf drowns in the uncanny reality of his presence, the mystery of it, knowing he will fall into that gravitational pull, if he gets too close.

"No, it was…" he tries, late, hurried, hoarse. "It was good. But I… I couldn't―"

"You forgot your shitty twig-water."

Íþróttaálfurinn blinks, and without thinking, he says, "Technically, it's flower-water."

"Whatever."

Glæpur's backlit figure vibrates with a huff, shaking something in front of him, and finally Íþróttaálfurinn sees, in the grasp of one large hand, the two steaming mugs. He accepts the one pushed into his hands, white ceramic scalding his palms. A single, round lemon slice floats up, bright yellow in the pale infusion like a tiny, citrusy sun.

It takes him a good half a minute to register what he has in his hands.

"Wait, you…" He finally looks up, stunned. "You made chamomile tea for me? After―"

"Solla didn't let me poison it. Chug down, you need it."

This doesn't add up, Íþróttaálfurinn thinks. Glæpur should be angry with him, furious, reeling with vengeance. Íþróttaálfurinn was cruel, carelessly taking out on him things he had little to do with, cutting him to the quick, then hiding away instead of apologizing immediately. If not actively plotting his demise, Glæpur should at least be avoiding him like the plague. Certainly he shouldn't be out after him in a snowstorm.

But, after all, when has Glæpur ever cared what he is or isn't supposed to do? Íþróttaálfurinn takes a sip of the scorching, incongruous chamomile, and if kills him, oh well.

He cringes. Not poisoned, just… bad. The infusion is weak, the lemon weird. The honey store-bought, oversweet. Yet, he can picture Solla's face, as she moves the sugar away from Glæpur's reach until it's on the other side of the kitchen counter, he can hear his peeved grunt. _Just one teaspoon, child, I beg you. Just let me make him shit himself_. No, he wouldn't say that in front of Solla… would he?

Íþróttaálfurinn takes a longer sip, then eats the lemon slice in a single bite, nose prickling with the tang. And Glæpur mouths, _what the fuck_ , under his breath, and makes him want to laugh. As he looks down, a raindrop falls into the mug. But it's not raining, he thinks stupidly. Then hurries to dry his eyes. There is a joke he could slip in, somewhere around here. If only he could find it.

"I don't know what to say," he murmurs, clutching tight his now salty chamomile. As though it might be his last chance to ever speak, he gushes out, "Glæpur, I… I said some really horrible things to you in there, and I can't _believe_ what came out of my mouth―I don't _really_ think that―"

"Oh, _ugh_." Glæpur's whole face scrunches up. "I was gonna go ahead and pretend it never happened, elf, do try to keep up."

Instantly, the gravitational pull on him falters, lessens.

"I'm just trying to apologize!" he blurts out, shooting after it like it's a falling mug. "It's… it's a bad night―I'm not myself."

Only it's not a physical thing. He can't grasp it, his good reflexes are no use, and all the words in his mouth come out shaped wrong, excuses instead of apologies. Glæpur shifts, a sigh condenses as white smoke in the air, exasperation made visible.

"I don't need any half-assed apology," he says drily.

"I'm sorry. I really am." Íþróttaálfurinn shrinks back. He pulls a knee up, leaning his forehead into it, hat flopping forward as he shakes his head. "But it's… so unlike you to forgive this easily. It compels."

The man tenses, looking away. "I just like to be unpredictable. And who says I forgive you? It's just water. Don't read into it."

The elf watches him shuffle his feet, muddling the snow under him, as though the ground kept him rooted there against his will. He swallows.

"Glæpur…"

"And hey, honest people are a liar's best company, right? You just spoke your mind. It's good."

"It's not good… I spoke my anger, nothing else. And I hit really low with it. Over what, petty theft and dirty dishes?" Íþróttaálfurinn shakes his head to himself. "No, it wasn't about you. You didn't deserve it."

A rustle of clothing, maybe a shrug. "I deserved it a little."

Something clenches tight in his chest, squeezing out the air again.

"No―" he gasps, looking up in alarm, "no, you didn't! I w―"

"You're _not_ going to let this go, are you?"

"I…" he starts, losing his words halfway. Maybe he is doing nothing but make it worse, and worse, and worse. "Sorry."

He hears Glæpur take a sip, and stares into his own mug in lingering astonishment.

"I'm not myself tonight, either," the man says, a little quieter. "Haven't been myself in a while. I was _trying_ to be myself, I think… but it's not going well, is it? I usually don't get caught."

Íþróttaálfurinn holds his tongue. Though his nature rebels to it, right now he doesn't have the moral standing to contradict Glæpur. Neither of them feels like himself, and the mere fact that the man is here, in front of him, goes against much of what he believed of them as a duo. Hero and villain, sworn enemies, nemeses. And now, it seems, tentative friends. Practicing understanding like a foreign language.

"How did you find me?"

In his line of view, Glæpur's hand merely points at the footprints―and handprints―in the snow leading to his bench.

"You aren't the only one who can give a good chase," Glæpur says primly, a curl of irony in his voice. He is choosing to take him literally now, as they both can see the, _but_ why _did you find me?_ hiding under the plain and obvious. But that would be too much, too soon, too close, and he knows Glæpur can be more subtle than him when he wants to.

As Íþróttaálfurinn finally gathers himself enough to look up at him, Glæpur throws his head back and sticks his tongue out to catch a snowflake.

"… you know that's water, right?" he asks, and the man chuckles. Deep in his chest, something twinges almost painfully at the boyish defiance of Glæpur's posture as he pretends to cough and sputter, in a parody of disgust.

Glæpur's gaze wanders for a moment, lost somewhere. Then, setting down his mug on the bench, he claps his hands like a theatre director.

"Okay, let's try this again, yeah? Let's just do a do-over. From the top."

Before Íþróttaálfurinn can even think of an answer, he inhales, looks down at him and leans his whole body back in surprise, like he's seeing him for the first time.

"Ah!" he says grandiosely, as if it were another encounter from their past game. "Íþróttaálfurinn! My worst enemy, my greatest foe, bane of my existence! Long time no see."

Glæpur's voice has dropped, hitting that husky middle between raspy and jovial, and in a moment, the lonely, hostile night transforms around them. The chase-game is on, and the practiced ease of it envelops them, painting their surroundings in familiar backdrops. The elf's eyes prickle again and yet, despite everything, he feels like smiling. In this light, the uncanny fuzziness of Glæpur's sweater mutes to some obscure disguise, Íþróttaálfurinn's presence into an improvised, yet clever trap. Maybe, he's being used as bait, but they have a plan all along, they're allied, and they're going to be all right.

"Glanni Glæpur," he acknowledges. He nods formally, but the army wife came out in his voice again, and he can practically _feel_ the man's eyebrows quirk up. "How strange, meeting you here. How… how's your holiday going?"

"Crime takes no holidays, you fool!" Glæpur parries, and Íþróttaálfurinn chokes out a startled laugh.

"Let's see," he continues, hand-waving his botched improv and working with it. "Just befriended some noisy brats, learnt what Christmas is… got caught bothering the silverware like a rookie. You know, the usual."

The elf takes a punishing sip of the―purposefully, he suspects―terrible drink, and represses a shudder.

"Oh, and!" The man suddenly perks up, brightening up with a smile so wide it shows his missing bicuspid, "I've received a―a _present_? Like, they _gave_ me this box, for some reason―for free? It has my name on it and everything?"

Íþróttaálfurinn watches him shuffle forward the strap of his burlap sack, until he can pull out the big purple box he saw him cradle in the Mayor's living room. He notices with relief that there is no silverware in sight. He breathes out.

"Of course it's free," he tells him softly, breaking character. "It's a present. I told you they like you for real."

The man gestures, as though the very concept was just silly.

"This thing is _full_ of―I just can't believe they'd give me stuff like this for free! It's a… care package, I think?" He steps forward to show him, popping the lid and lifting the elaborate ribbon that had held the box closed. "See, there's like, soap and stuff like that, razors, and some clothes…" He tugs at the new old sweater he's wearing, almost fondly. "Got scolded by Santa himself, now I can't risk getting eaten by the Jólaköttur, right?"

Íþróttaálfurinn cannot hold back a snort. "You are the Jólaköttur, Glæpur."

The man doesn't even pretend to be offended. His face just splits into that wide grin, letting out a high-pitched squeak of a laugh.

"Maybe I am," he wheezes, eyes twinkling. He stops, looking at the lid in his hand, suddenly sobering. "Seriously, though, it wasn't _you_ that made them do this, right?"

"Of course not," the elf says, in the _human matters_ tone. "I don't interfere in this kind of thing… or know that much about Christmas myself. Just get them a present next year, and you'll be even."

Glæpur snaps his fingers. "Hah. Knew there had to be a catch somewhere. Too good to come without strings attached."

He stands there for a moment, biting into his lip. Then, pensively, he plunges his hand deep into the box and rustles.

"Oh, what the hell," he say, in the tone of someone losing an inner battle. "Someone even said their grandma had an attic I could crash in…? I didn't believe it but―aha! They were serious, here's a key!"

Íþróttaálfurinn loses him for a moment, as he squints at the small address tag, turning it round and round, like it's some ancient code he has to decipher.

"Do you… need help with that?" he offers, still looking for ways to amend.

"Hm? No, I got it." He's memorizing it, and Íþróttaálfurinn could swear he can see the address writing itself in his memory from the look of concentration alone. The man lets out a whoop. "Bam! Done."

Íþróttaálfurinn finds himself smiling. It's much better now, after crying and moving about, knowing no one was robbed, that there was no great evil plan, that despite everything he hasn't ruined the children's Christmas. Yet, his leg is still bouncing, restless, making the snow crunch under his heel. It just should have never been the objective, making _himself_ feel better. He sighs.

"You really _are_ okay," he half-asks, bound to make sure, even if it breaks their fragile balance.

"Never been better!" Glæpur chirps, on the wave of enthusiasm. He pulls the sides of his roomy sweater, tenting the fabric over his slightly rounded stomach. "Look! I haven't seen it like this in _so long…_ I got an _entire_ bowl of leftovers just for me! And this _pile_ of frosted bun-rolls things―and everyone was laughing and I'm still not in on the joke but hey, they were good," he says fondly. He taps his chest with a fist, releasing a noise between a belch and a hiccup. "Might have overdone it a little, even."

"It takes time to adjust, when you've gone without for a while," Íþróttaálfurinn says, almost automatically. Glæpur's head tilts to the side.

"Oh? Speaking from experience?" the man inquires.

Lost in dark tunnels and distant wounds for a moment, he nearly forgets to nod. It happened to him too, when he had just escaped the coal mines, and he saw it happen to the other children, escape companions and rescues alike. They'd all feast on every simple meal, as though it would be the last time they had food in their lives. The body is wiser sometimes, he thinks, exercising caution where the bare minimum passes for opulence.

"Well, it's not good to adjust too much, you know?" Glæpur is saying, shifting a little, masking in street wisdom the sprouts of anxiety. "One's got to stay adaptable."

When Íþróttaálfurinn lifts his eyes, Glæpur is peering off in the distance once again. He looks at the man's profile, high-bridged nose and prominent cheekbones, observing the cold draw colour onto both.

"It's good to see you alive," he says, without thinking.

Glæpur comes back to himself, and snorts.

"Alive, huh?" he says. "Glanni Glæpur, criminal mastermind. Freshly back from the dead, here to stay."

"I mean―it's… a relief," he scrambles to adjust. He meant to say _well_ , or _better_ , but _alive_ is what came out instead. And he thinks instinct is wiser sometimes, too, in its accidental literality. "Would… would hate to be bored, without you around."

The man gives him a look of pure surprise.

"I _did_ have some rough times this year. Almost thought I wouldn't make it." He runs a distracted hand over his brow-line, then under his eyes, brushing the edge of the dark circles still there. "And I don't know how, but some stupid elf managed to drag me back."

The crossing rushes back at him, and maybe, he thinks, it's rushing back at them both. Íþróttaálfurinn thinks that maybe, _maybe_ , he can risk mentioning it, now that Glæpur did it first.

"That trip _did_ feel like dying and passing over," he says.

He had crossed other times, of course, but the Ocean had never seemed as wide. Nothing but the unforgiving, endless expanse of water, the man barely alive on his little bag of twigs―his _death trap_ held in the air by air itself―and him, alone with his strength, with the unfathomable breadth of his mission.

His mind lost some hours in the air, between time-zones; he can only approximate how much time it took to complete that flight, his sense of time out of tune with the rest of the world. It felt like an eternity, in a way in which traveling usually doesn't.

In his glimpses of memory, he sees the crumpled heap that formed his nemesis' body, forehead against his knees, arms clutched over his ribs, sunken into his shoulders. He remembers the sense of uncertainty it gave him, like when the security ropes twisted up into knots for no reason. It made him want to untangle him, rub away the ache in his joints. It made him want to hold his hand, at least, as time eased his pain.

He remembers he didn't have to try to know Glæpur couldn't be touched. He could _feel_ it in his guts. Even only half-there, keening in his sleep or mute like a dying animal, he needed to stay in himself, re-establish the contours and territories of his body, of what was part of him and what wasn't. Maybe the hours Íþróttaálfurinn lost went to him, he hopes, and aided him in his battle against the unthinkable.

On the Ocean, night went by like a passing shadow. Above them, only stars. Under them, the endless sea, uncannily still for a moment, like spilled oil. He didn't rest: he looked up at the sky and kept going, slipping out of himself to endure the strain. Glæpur didn't move either, didn't look up, no stars for him through the envelope's fabric.

He remembers―but he isn't so sure, this time―a voice like an echo, rough and hollow, saying, _You should have left me there_. He remembers the harsh sound of retching, of being shaken from his trance with the stark impression that the other was about to jump. _You would have died_ , he remember saying, but he isn't sure if he said it out loud. Afterwards, nothing but a long, death-still silence.

"If that's the case, they lied to us," says the man, here and now and out loud, with a half-smile. "Hell's colder than we've been told."

The elf chuckles into his mug, a jolt of relief coursing through him. The chamomile is even more terrible now that it's cold, all tastes clashing. It's his new favourite.

"You should have stayed inside," Íþróttaálfurinn tells him. There is something painful to _Glæpur_ and _staying_ as ideas, especially associated. Something painful to his presence, too. "Keep having fun with the kids, enjoy the fireplace, have more dessert. Not come after me in a blizzard."

"Listen, stop flattering yourself. At the rate we were going, I would have been asked to sing at the girls' wedding―it was time to _go_."

Íþróttaálfurinn gasps. "Glæpur, they're _ten_."

Somewhat darkly, the man says, "It's never too early to start planning."

"Speaking from experience?"

"Oh― _God_ , no."

Íþróttaálfurinn won't deceive himself. There is a lot of him that is insufferable, ungrateful, unrepentant. Yet, everything takes life around him, the colours become more vivid, the chaos alive and breathing. Even now, that peculiar warmth radiates from him, standing in his soft-looking sweater, mug in hand, talking of children's wedding plans. It would make it a memorable event, he knows, if he sang in it.

"I just… didn't think you'd come out after me, after the way I—" he breathes out, halting himself on the edge of the cliff. "Just… I appreciate it. I don't think I deserve it."

And Glæpur huffs, because in a roundabout way, the elf is going back to talking about it. And he thinks he has exclusive rights to the roundabout ways of doing things.

When he speaks, his voice is also low, almost intimate.

"Well, I... kind of owe you a life debt, don't I?"

Íþróttaálfurinn blinks up in surprise. _So you do have rules_ , he wants to say. _So, this too, is nothing but currency to you_ , he wants to say.

"But… you always run before it's time to collect," he says instead, but it comes out so thick and stuttered that the man only stares down at him, brows furrowed.

"Are you going to cry _again_ ―alright, what's going on with _you_?" he says, canting his hip to the side. "Why aren't _you_ yourself, tonight? Why aren't _you_ inside, playing house with _your_ humans? The little one climbed on me and cried when you went away. Scared the shit out of me."

"It's… nothing," Íþróttaálfurinn hears his voice answer. It's unbecoming of a hero, to get like this, to be read like an open book. They wear their hearts inside leather armour, not on their sleeve.

Glæpur isn't pleased, if the low growl in his throat is anything to go by.

"Honestly, what sort of idiot do you take me for?" he asks, a flash of anger in his eyes. "You went around walking―I didn't see you do a single flip, the whole night. Normally, it's a struggle to get you to shut up, and tonight you talk to me only to throw a fit. I'm unnerving, sure, but it can't be all me. Even dear Lolli could tell something's wrong with you… and that's just insulting."

"Glæpur…" he starts, pained, but discovers he has nothing to say. It fills him with something, some sweet ache, that the man _knows_ him, and can tell when he's acting strange. He swallows the thickness in his throat, trying to speak, but the other is quicker.

"And now I find you here, freezing your ass off and sulking, looking up at me with those teary baby blues like I just descended from the fucking clouds. For a cup of leaf-water."

Íþróttaálfurinn snaps his mouth shut, mute. Glæpur leans over him, pulling a gasp from his throat.

"C'mon, you can tell your dearest foe," he coaxes. "If you can't trust your enemies in life, who can you trust?"

He is leaning in, too close, so close it reminds Íþróttaálfurinn of how it felt to hold him, to carry his weight in his arms. His body-heat is a halo of warmth in the cold night, and he wants to fall in, in, in.

"Homesick? Miss the family?" Glæpur tries, and he must know the inside of him the way he knows the houses he wants to rob, because damn him if he didn't crack the safe on the first try.

"I don't… I don't have anything to miss," he whispers, voice catching. He has no words to describe the ache, the restlessness, the warmth of his people. Can you be homesick for something you never had, for a place you've never known? For a future that could and then wasn't?

More to himself than to Glæpur, he repeats, "It's just the holidays that get me like this, really."

" _Really_ ," the man echoes, a little sarcastic and oddly careful. He leaps up on the bench, thick-soled boots scooping the snow off the seat, snatching up his mug in the same motion, as he perches on the seatback just above the elf.

Matching him in tone and volume, he says, "Didn't know we were the same."

The elf hears himself make a noise, interrogative and hopeful, sounding a bit like a lost dog. Hopefully, this time Glæpur doesn't mean they are the same breed of jackal.

"Hm… self-sufficient from a young age, let's say," he says conversationally, licking his lips after a sip.

"Oh." Íþróttaálfurinn leans in, yearning again for that closeness, barely tasted. "I'm… an orphan too, yes."

He thinks of the human cemeteries, the proper ones down in the green hearts of towns. Nature reigns in them, too, but it is tended to, cared for, tamed. Around Christmas, they can be seen from above, strewn with lights and candles, alive with memories of love and loss.

" _Tsk_ ," Glæpur clicks his tongue at him, chiding. "It's all in the perspective, enemy mine. If you put it like that, of course the holidays are going to get you down."

The wind rustles the top of the trees, sweeping pine needles across the town square. Íþróttaálfurinn mulls this over.

"Do you remember yours?" Glæpur asks quietly, after a while. "Ever looked for them, any idea who you come from?"

Íþróttaálfurinn thinks for a moment of the village he must have had, and in his mind it has always been just like the one that raised him. Like a double, but different, and the difference is _in_ him, in every drop of blood, every cell of his body. Part of the land, yearning to move but not too much, never far enough to forget where he belongs.

"I never looked into it." He hesitates, chewing on his bottom lip. "You?"

Glæpur shakes his head. "Nah, me neither. But I bet mine were, like, criminal underworld royalty. This stuff _has_ to run in the blood." His eyes, for a moment, get lost and distant. "I can't come from honest people, right? That'd be just preposterous."

Íþróttaálfurinn stays quiet for a moment.

"I think," he says, carefully, and it's the closest thing to a lie he has said in a while, "honest people or not, they'd be proud."

"Oh, shut up," Glæpur says gruffly, because he knows. But it's worth it for the way the man turns away, a vibration traveling through him like a visible current, unable to look at him for a full minute, trying and failing to hide the blush in his cheeks and ears.

Then, Glæpur frees the hand closest to him and reaches around him, nudging aside the scarf and his shirt collar, to rest his over-warm palm on the juncture of Íþróttaálfurinn's neck and shoulder. The elf tenses in surprise.

The touch is warm, like the summer sun, and reaches past his skin, so deep into him it touches something, the marrow-deep longing hidden there. There is an unspoken question in the sunlight in his palm, but he knows he is free to ignore it. It's just a pass, a permission to be weak under all his armour. Glæpur's left knee is level with his shoulder, and he takes in its sharp contours, the solidity of bone. He leans to the side and he doesn't have to lean much, until he's resting his temple against it. It's knobby, hard like the edge of a shelf. Glæpur lets him.

"I'm homesick for… summer," he says, words out of his mouth like handprints in untouched snow. He hasn't told anyone. He waits for the cradling touch to move away, but it doesn't.

"Is summer home, to you?" Glæpur asks, like he perfectly understands how that would work.

Summer and Grandmother were always one and the same in Íþróttaálfurinn's mind. He thinks of her hands, large and rough from work, just like his own. Grandmother would tell him not to give up, once again. She would tell him that if he follows his heart, everything will be all right, that there is always a way. That there can be no wrong in an honest heart.

"It used to."

He leans and lets the large, warm hand cradle him, and tells his story, in just a few words.

It is not, after all, a great story. Years and years ago, a lost elf child, abandoned, nameless; raised by a stranger with boot and stick, a number in lieu of a name, hands and face black with coal since he has memory. The dark, endless tunnels, the echoes of creaking beams. The relief of starlight. The games he and the other nameless children played among the sharp rocks, imagination for equipment, team spirit for the family they all… missed, lacked, yearned for? He doesn't know when, but his right arm has wrapped itself around Glæpur's shin, hand clutching just above the cuff of his boot. The man lets him.

Then the escape, the flight, the rescues. Grandmother, opening his little hands, crying into them as her fingers found roughness where there should have been only smooth baby skin. The village of elven strangers that fed him and clothed him, like one of theirs, and yet not. Too close and knowing, always. _I know what you mean_ , Glæpur takes a moment to tell him, and rolls his eyes.

Íþróttaálfurinn had been no one's child, and he had been Grandmother's child. And now he was no one's child again. He belongs now only in his memories of summer. Only there he's at home.

" _Shit_ ," Glæpur says eloquently, after a pause. "And here I was, thinking you had to have it all nice in life, to become such a Goody Two-Shoes. And instead you got coal mines in your youth. Damn."

"No one who had it good in life takes the path I took, Glæpur," he says, tired. "Well, or yours."

"Heroes and villains," Glæpur says pensively. "We all have our coal mines, one way or another."

It's not like his voice sounds fully sincere, not like it doesn't have any sarcasm or bitterness in it. It's that his hand is still there, holding him in place, and it's enough to blow the chill and the coal from inside him. If his worst enemy can bear the brunt of his inadequacy, and still see the hero in him, then maybe he _is_ worth something, after all.

"I bring all the coal mines with me every time I show up, don't I? Disrespecting hospitality, lying, tricking kids into work." Glæpur sighs. "It's a wonder you don't hate my damn guts."

He agrees with a nod, wordless, and Glæpur tightens his lips, and the elf chooses to imagine he's trapping an apology there. And it's almost as good as hearing it. He'll get by with acknowledgment, if he has to.

"The children were okay, in the end," Íþróttaálfurinn offers. "They forgave."

"But did _you_ forgive?"

"I have nothing against your guts." And perhaps it's not the wisest thing to say to a nemesis, but it is, in fact, the truth.

Glæpur snorts. "Oh no, not me. I did what I did," he says dismissively. "I meant the asshole, the miner."

The miner. Even back when he was only a number, Íþróttaálfurinn never thought of the man as _just_ a miner. Mr. Kicker used to be _Sir_ , or _Mister_ , or _Boss_. A man so covered in coal, inside and outside, they suspected his heart to be just as black as his lungs. He used to be authority, a place of loyalty, even some distorted form of devotion.

When he was a number, he thought he was lucky, hearing the stories the man told about what happened to the _other_ orphans. Little Number Ten, and the human children he would later rescue, they were all lucky to be with _him_ and not some _other_ guy, one of the _mean_ ones. And if they kept being lucky―he would say, coughing up his black phlegm and spitting on the ground―they would grow up to be good and generous, just like him.

"I put it behind me," he says evenly, but setting the mug down between his feet, because his free hand is curling into a fist. "If my crystal called me to him, I'd help him. Like I'd help anyone else."

Glæpur nods, solemn. "Of course. Your heroism has moved me, I am a changed man. I see the world in a whole new light now," he deadpans. Determined to get it out of him, he insists, "If you had put it behind you, you wouldn't be out here, homesick for summer while your kids pout inside. Spit the truth, nemesis."

Íþróttaálfurinn shudders long and hard. What he thinks of that man now is unbecoming of a hero, unbecoming of an elf, even, maybe.

"I don't… really care," he hears himself whisper, because Glæpur already knows what's inside him, and still sees the hero in him. "I wouldn't care if he lived or died."

"At last, progress."

His grip on the man's leather-clad ankle tightens, and he feels naked, high-strung like an exposed nerve, yet oddly _clean_. Purified, like a sun-bleached bone.

"I don't even know if he's still alive," he hisses. "And I couldn't care less."

The cradling hand presses briefly down on him. "That's more like it."

He looks up, nearly exhausted, and Glæpur smiles down at him, raw and real, his eyes twinkling. Íþróttaálfurinn gets the feeling that he needed to hear what he said as much as Íþróttaálfurinn needed to get it out.

"Looks like you've made a new family, right here," Glæpur tells him then, nodding to the golden light of the Mayor's windows, where the sleepover is going on, where they miss him. "You've earned it, don't you think?"

And truth manifests as the man speaks it, the three splinters of him reunited in one pair of grey eyes, looking down at him, dancing with some unknown warmth. Everything is so simple, when Glæpur says it. He has family and love here, and back among the elves too, and much of his anguish lives and dies in his own heart. Simple, right? And yet.

He considers family, and considers the elusive man next to him. Had Glæpur always been like this, so perceptive? How much of him has Íþróttaálfurinn been blind to, when he knew nothing but the chase-game and petty skirmishes? Was there always so much care in him? Some distant sorrow is there too, he can see it just peeking out of the clouds, and in that moment he knows the other is certain of his own separation, of his incompatibility with the loving people around them.

He inhales to speak, to apologize in full for what he did, to thank him for reaching out, just as unexpected as it is undeserved.

 _You as well, you aren't an orphan anymore, either,_ Íþróttaálfurinn wants to tell him, but it would be too soon, too knowing _. I am here, too_.

But the man straightens to attention, inadvertently tugging him off his knee.

"Hush―it's time," Glæpur says, raising his index finger, tilting his ear like en elder listening for wind whispers.

The clock tower strikes midnight, and Christmas falls like a spell around them. In the distance, they can hear the pop of fireworks, but in the town square all is silence and melodic peal.

Time chimes by, the bells now ringing the notes of a semi-familiar tune, made haunting by the air soft as cotton, by the loaded silence between the two lonely figures on a cold wooden bench, feeling like that new white world belongs to them alone.

The snow has fallen on them and they've let it. Íþróttaálfurinn can feel it trickle down him, like he is a dewy leaf in the morning sun, melting into his body heat. Glæpur's hand hasn't moved from his shoulder. Under his firm touch, everything feels safe, the heaviest of memories feel lighter. In a single, peaceful intuition, he knows the children aren't worried about him. Like he knows they are safe inside, together, they know he's not alone out here, either.

The man sits so still, a statue that breathes steam in white puffs, and doesn't stir when the elf lifts his gaze to look at him. Cast in the warm light of the streetlamp, the snow collects on him like he is a branch, a stone, not melting, not moving. He wonders, is this how the man vanishes in the shadows? Is this how he disappears?

His lips are dark and full, and they can curl and quirk so easily around a lie, around a truth, around a name so lost on foreign tongues, breathing life into anything he says. But when he isn't smiling, Glæpur has a very solemn face. Long and sharp, like the carving of an ageless idol. It makes it hard to remember how young he is, when the heavy brow of a thinker shadows his lowered eyelids. Without the charm of his smile, his boyish frown, without the twinkling light in his eyes, he looks like something left behind, like the skeletons of abandoned houses you see from above, at the feet of the mountains, so eerie and beautiful and lonely.

"Everything feels so new, when it snows. So clean," Glæpur says in a murmur, voice hoarse in the hollow of his immobile form. He inhales, exhales, steam like dragon-breath from his nostrils. "I missed it."

He moves, lifting his face up to the snowfall, exposing his long neck over the collar of his leather suit. Of the bruising that marred his throat, only a faint yellow shadow remains, like a smudge of chamomile sap. So clear, so inevitably _there_ , Íþróttaálfurinn feels heartless and stupid for doubting him.

"I missed _you_ ," Íþróttaálfurinn says, and knows now how a thing so heavy can become weightless, once out in the cold night. His own voice sounds low and thick, tone more loaded than any question. "Ever since you left, I've been restless. Worried."

 _You have a funny way to show it_ , is what he would expect him to say.

Glæpur blinks like he just woke up, flicking the snow off his eyelashes. The hand on the elf's shoulder twitches, back to being its own separate piece. When it flows away from him, it leaves a warmed, pleasantly damp patch of skin, immediately assaulted by the merciless wind. The elf shivers, unaccustomed.

"Seems like it's picking up again," Glæpur says, nodding to the sky. Without meeting his eyes, clearing his throat a couple of times, he asks, "I don't ask this often to people that aren't me, but… where the hell are _you_ going to stay?"

The ageless carved god is gone, and before him is a spindly man in a silly Christmas sweater. He flows off the bench and to his feet, shakes the snow off his hair, and twirls a key around his pinkie finger. In his other hand, dangles the empty mug.

"I could ask the Mayor for a corner when I take his cups back, I suppose," Íþróttaálfurinn says, staring down into his own, tearing his eyes off the man's naughty smile. It is growing too wide and he knows what it means. "No, you _have_ to give them back, Glæpur, you _incorrigible_ ―"

"But _Íþró_ , where will I put my morning coffee?" the man asks innocently, grinning like he paid him a compliment. "Wouldn't it be rude to barge in on Christmas morning asking for cups? But, then again," he stops, halted by a sudden hesitation, recovers with a tilted grin, "if it's that important, I'll let you take them back tomorrow."

"How generous of you," Íþróttaálfurinn can only mutter, blinking in astonishment. Is he asking…?

As far as invitations go, this carries implications, he knows that much. Loaded. Yet, under the snow falling light and clean on them, he sees with sudden clarity that this is what he had been hoping for, since the man found him sulking on the bench. More time to talk, to set everything right. To know a man that, in the end, knows far less than he would like. At least, ever since he has known the weight of his sleeping head on his shoulder, and the lightness of his hand when it reaches out to protect. Since the children forgave him, and the chase-game took them on sea and land and shadowy corners.

"But I shouldn't," he finds himself murmuring, still, glancing up to him and away.

Glæpur falters, shuffling his feet so that new footprints overwrite the old, half-filled ones. When he lifts his eyes, for a moment the frightened, helpless thing he held in his arms in that alley flashes back to him.

"I insist," he says simply, a little haltingly. "But hurry up and decide, my toes are going to _fall off_."

Without waiting for his answer, he adjusts the strap of his bag and takes a couple of steps away, then glances, unsubtly, over his shoulder to see if he's coming along.

As it seems, this time around, Íþróttaálfurinn is the one with nobody to turn to, the stray to be picked up and carried away to safety.

"I―yes, I'm here," he says when he shakes himself from his stupor and catches up to him in three leaps, taking him lightly by the elbow. The man stiffens.

"I can't… offer more than my company, though," Glæpur blurts out, smile frozen and wide, terrified eyes. Íþróttaálfurinn swallows, stepping away in apology.

"Good thing we're on a truce, then," he says, smiling back tentatively, head crowding with worry at the uncanny apology in Glæpur's voice, and the even more worrisome shaky breath of relief that the other tries to dissimulate. The arm jolted like live wire at his touch, and his hand tingles with rejection.

Then, sort of impatiently, Glæpur takes him by the wrist, grasping hard.

"Couldn't have you out here all alone, in a blizzard, on Christmas, now could I?" he says, and drags him off.

* * *

Notes: TFW you get Íþróttaálfurinn to open up and it's like opening a shaken soda can.

The _Jólaköttur_ is the Christmas Cat that, in Icelandic folklore, comes to eat you if you don't have at least one (1) new piece of clothing on Christmas.  
The joke with the buns is that in _Jól í Latabæ_ , Siggi at one point calls Glanni with the nickname "glæpasnúður" (crime bun). According to our sources, a _snúður_ is a type of sweet bun, and the word can be used as an affectionate nickname. Obviously… he doesn't call him that to his face.

Chapter title from _Take You Home_ , by Scars on 45.


	5. Leaving as trace only circles of rust

Interior decorating, the mail again, and cracking façades.  
(In the attic)

* * *

The increasingly heavy snowfall covers their tracks, hiding the tell-tale story of their hesitation, the pauses they took to reconsider, the differences in pace and gait.

Glæpur is―of course―a pathological jaywalker, which in itself is not the littlest bit surprising. The streets are empty, anyway, and Íþróttaálfurinn still doesn't feel like himself enough to remind anyone of any rule.

So, happy to be dragged along and walk at one tenth of his preferred speed, the elf contemplates the hand holding his.

Step after step, Glæpur's hand slid from his wrist until it came to curl over his fingers. It's cold, and bony, and oddly rough. _Brittle_ , is what comes to mind, and Íþróttaálfurinn holds it without gripping, with the same care he has for children's tiny fingers. Intermittently, he lifts his free hand to rub at his neck. From pleasantly warm, the patch of skin the man touched started feeling tingly, even a bit chafed.

"Your hands are really dry," he observes, scratching absentmindedly.

"Well, pardon me," Glæpur sneers, at ease again. "Couldn't exactly lotion up while on the run, could I? Hell, I could barely shave."

Siggi's grandma lives around here, Íþróttaálfurinn recognises the area now. The address on the key tag must be hers, and step after step, the realization dawns on him. After missing his nemesis viciously for most of a month, Íþróttaálfurinn is going to spend the night with him. It feels _odd_ , almost too direct, too far from the playful familiarity of their game—even without the implications of human culture. He will enter another space that Glæpur will instantly claim, and the man's gravity will pull on him and he'll say things that should stay hidden, compromise himself further and further. Comparatively, the blizzard seems less dangerous.

Lost in thought, it takes him a moment to notice that they have stopped, and that the man's hand is not around his anymore.

"… Glæpur?" he calls, swirling on himself a couple of times.

"Hush! I'm up here," comes the answer, drawing his gaze up. His nemesis is perched atop the wall that divides Siggi's grandma's garden from her neighbour's, clearly calculating the jump to the nearest windowsill.

"Wait, are you trying to break in?" he asks, to his own puzzlement, in a loud whisper.

"What does it look like?"

"Gl―you have a _key_!"

Glæpur's concentration breaks, almost visible as he looks down at him, freezing where he crouches.

"That's true!" he laughs, pulling the key from his pocket and smacking his forehead. " _Hah_! Habits, am I right?"

Still up on the narrow wall, he springs to his feet, looking up at the sky. Íþróttaálfurinn watches the bag dangle off his back as he puts one step in front of the other, clothes fluttering in the snowy wind. It's nothing particularly dangerous―the wall is lower than eye-level―yet Íþróttaálfurinn feels a prickling of sweat on his back, the hair at his nape rise like hackles.

"Hey, Íþró," the man calls in a distant, pensive tone, looking up instead of down, walking like he's on a catwalk and not a tightrope. "If I fell down, would you catch me?"

"Of course I would," he gasps. _But be careful_ , he wants to plead, but it snags in his throat like a kite between branches. _Be careful, I might be late again._

Glæpur doesn't fall. He just smirks and dashes forward in a sprint to the end of the wall. In one fluid motion, he grabs the railing of the narrow metal staircase and vaults his long legs over it, reaching the landing. He bends at the waist in a flourishing bow towards him, but Íþróttaálfurinn is busy trying to keep his heart from hammering its way out of his ribs.

"Glæpur, I _just_ told you―" he scolds, even though he didn't tell him, taking the steps three at a time. "That was unnecessary! Everything's covered in ice, you could have slipped, you could have―"

"I thought you were all about unnecessary stunts, Sports Elf."

"I am not about recklessness!"

What's even more frightening is the near-panic that seizes him at the mere _thought_ of Glaepur getting injured again. And even worse, right on Íþróttaálfurinn's watch.

The man scrunches up his nose, in uncaring impertinence. " _Reckless_ is, quite literally, my first name."

At the top of the stairs, there is the low door that must be the attic. Glæpur turns the key with a sleight of hand, and the rusty metal thing opens soundlessly in his hands, like he's been living here for years. Íþróttaálfurinn ducks after him to enter, a little impressed.

There is no light switch: he comes close to tripping on Glæpur's shoes and bag while taking off his boots. Before he can protest, a rustle followed by a hushed cry of triumph alert him that the other has found something of interest.

"A-ha! Candles." Glæpur lights one, apparently out of nowhere, bathing the attic in its soft glow. "Wow. Charming."

He passes an unlit candle to Íþróttaálfurinn, then tugs him near to light it with the flame from his own. His grip is back on the elf's wrist, firm and chafing, tilting at just the right angle. The little flames flicker vivid in his transparent eyes, when he looks up and grins and releases his hand, walking backwards into the darkness. Íþróttaálfurinn swallows a lump of nothing, looking away.

The attic does have some sort of appeal to it, in its own way, the elf muses.

The ceilings are so sloped that a man of Glæpur's height has to watch his head as soon as he moves away from the middle. It's an open space, the only door leading to a tiny bathroom, only place where a lone light-bulb hangs bare above the door. The bathroom itself is more of a corner with sink, bowl, and shower than anything else, crowded with what looks like a disassembled wardrobe. The kitchen area is nothing but a camp stove on a coffee table, where they set the mugs, next to a pair of faded kitchen rags. Old paint peels from the walls, old floors creak, and old furniture crowds the low space under the eaves. _Charming_ , apparently.

The wind's howling sounds amplified in here, and it doesn't look like it would be too bright, even in daylight. It probably suits Glæpur, Íþróttaálfurinn considers, this shadowy stone burrow. Concerning himself, it is with fierce relief that he spots the skylight almost directly above a bare, moth-eaten floral couch.

In turn, the couch in question seems to be puzzling Glæpur. He has halted in the middle of the room, staring down at the mismatched set of sheets folded on one of the armrests. The old faded pillows look like a valiant attempt has been made at fluffing them up.

"Hello," Íþróttaálfurinn calls, after a full minute of silence, "you all right?"

Glæpur lifts his candle towards the ceiling, illuminating the beams overhead, without looking up. "You sure I'm the one you wanna ask this question to?"

Íþróttaálfurinn glances, letting out a sigh of impatience. Yes, the beams are creaking, yes, it's dark and tight, yes, there is only one window. It's bothering him less than expected, he considers, and though he yearns to, he will not be mistaking deflection for actual concern.

"Yes, I'm quite sure."

Glaepur shifts. "I didn't think… I wasn't expecting―this."

Íþróttaálfurinn perks his ears at the intriguing meekness in his voice. His nemesis stands there, looking at it all, not daring to touch.

While it is clear nobody spent money to put this together, a great deal of care obviously went into it. There is even a small, ancient-looking space heater right next to the couch―though the elf isn't sure it could ever work. _Stay a while_ , the room murmurs, in the children's happy voices. _At least stay the winter. You're welcome here_.

"What were you expecting, instead?"

"… no idea," the man says, with a small, helpless shrug. "A corner with a blanket… or a mattress on the floor, at best, maybe? You know, like a hideout."

"Is that the sort of place you usually—"

"You live in an _air balloon_ , you have no case."

"I don't _live_ in it." A little drily, he says, "The Mayor and my kids are kind, generous people. They wouldn't put you on the floor."

"They―uh. Still, this is… a lot, that's all I'm saying."

"Didn't you stay in the best hotel room at the Mayor's expense, last spring?"

Glæpur has the grace to cringe a little. "That was _different_ ," he sputters. "I was in a disguise, _Rikki Ríki_ was _nice,_ and _likable_ ―anybody would have paid for his hotel room. They didn't know what I was―what I am. I mean, _who_ I am. Oh, whatever."

"Glæpur," he says, resisting the impulse to reach a hand to his shoulder. He sounds desolated.

"Exactly."

"Why is it so hard to accept they know now, and still want you here?" he asks. "That they _really_ want you to be safe and welcome?"

The man outright _squirms_ , taking a step to the side, like he said something offensive.

"Because…!" he starts, gesturing emptily to anything and everything, shaking his head. "They have no reason to… it just makes no sense―"

He presses his lips together, trapping something, and Íþróttaálfurinn could swear he can see the cogs turning in his head, calculating a debt that he alone sees, planning escape routes for traps nobody has set. The tangled ropes of his balloon come back to mind, and bring sadness with their usual uncertainty.

"Glanni," he calls then, noticing something as his eyes trail down the man's twitchy figure.

He rolls the first name in his mouth like a food never tasted. There was something oddly intimate in the way the man lit his candle, that makes it strange to keep the kind of distance a last name implies.

"What."

"Why… are you missing a sock?"

Glanni―and maybe he can call him that, since he answered, and didn't sneer―uncannily, flushes a uniform pink under the residual patchy redness from the cold outside.

" _Well_ , uh… they made me hang it to the fireplace―because that's a thing you do on Christmas, apparently―and…" He briefly buries his face in both hands. Íþróttaálfurinn coughs down a snort. "I didn't know how to get it back… oh, don't laugh, I've had these on for _days_ and I draw the line at murder, Íþró―I said _stop_ _laughing_!"

But the elf can't help it. Every time he glances back at the man's feet―shifting, toeing the floorboards, one bare and one not―the laughter bubbles out of chest like a hot spring. Glanni throws his remaining sock at him, bouncing daintily on his bare foot, he pretends to faint and the man, too, cracks a grin. Soon, the candlelit attic fills with barely stifled laughter, tension receding in the dark corners, like skittering mice.

"No wonder your toes were cold," Íþróttaálfurinn says, looking up at him from the floor, some more of that unguarded tenderness slipping in his voice. Apparently, enough of it to make his nemesis shy his eyes away.

"Let's… just get this couch ready, yeah?" he grunts. Out of an open box in the corner, Glanni fishes some cracked decorative dish to stick the candles on. The wax drips on his fingers, but he doesn't seem to notice.

"Help me out, elf," he says, calling him back to attention. "Or _you_ will know the hideout life."

Íþróttaálfurinn rolls to his feet. "Aye aye."

It takes him the whole process of making the improvised bed―complete of shaking out the sheets, fitting the pillowcases, tucking in the corners―to come down from the surprise.

Without even questioning it, he had assumed he himself would take the proverbial blanket on the floor. Instead, Glanni wants them to share the couch, though its length and width would barely let a person of Íþróttaálfurinn's height lie down comfortably.

Maybe it will work, he muses. Maybe they'll take a side each, tangle their feet in the middle, half-heartedly kick each other's shins before settling down. It will be fine. It isn't the first time they had to squeeze together in the same room, after all: the chase-game had them finding themselves in a couple of _situations_.

They had taken their little squabble somewhere they shouldn't have, and Íþróttaálfurinn had accidentally blown Glanni's cover on dangerous turf. But, quick to think on his feet, the man smoothed a smirk over his face, and pulled the elf semi-effortlessly into his con.

Somehow, it ended with them spending the night in a small guestroom, presented with a single, twin bed. Íþróttaálfurinn would have shared it, at the time giving little thought to proximity―as long as Glanni agreed to leave his switchblade off reach. The man had scoffed like Íþróttaálfurinn insulted his lineage to the seventh generation, then plopped unhappily on the uncomfortable-looking armchair and claimed it as his. There, under the elf's intrigued stare―like a child at a magic fair―somehow the man folded all of his long limbs under the sole cover of his jacket, and went to sleep.

Íþróttaálfurinn had stared morbidly for a little while, in disbelief and, in hindsight, a little in awe too. Glanni seemed so small, curled up in the cradling arms of the chair, his ever-moving hands clutching the jacket intermittently, like a kitten kneading. Even in the apparent ease of his sleep, his deep frown didn't leave his face. It put something in him, some odd tingle in his stomach and, lying on his back on the made bed, he had the hardest time falling asleep. Glanni had on some nice perfume, too, fruity and fragrant, and by the stroke of midnight it had permeated the whole room, and finally lulled him to sleep. It was probably laced with something, come to think of it, because he―unsurprisingly―woke up alone. Even at the time, he had the feeling of having enjoyed it all a bit too much.

Now, in this new _situation_ he ended up in, he watches his nemesis dig out a couple of blankets, and spread them over the mismatched sheets.

"Why did you say…" Glanni starts suddenly, smoothing down the fabric then bunching it up, tucking and un-tucking, in a tide of hesitation. "Out on the bench, you said―but what reason would you have to be _worried_ about me?"

The elf tenses, drifting back to the sense of loss that hit him when he first woke up in the empty basket, with only the crashing waves for company. He concentrates on the blankets, anchoring himself to the present: they look warm and comfortable, smelling freshly laundered, like the sweater, and a bit like territorial male cat. Oddly, it works.

"I just was," he admits over the expanse of shared fabric, shared turf. Glanni is here now, and it's a balm to the aching memory, easing the words out of him. He draws in a shaky breath, distractedly pushing his palms together. "I didn't know where you went, I didn't know if you were safe, and you were hurt―"

"Psh. I don't get _hurt_ , I get _inconvenienced_ ," Glanni clips, in a voice that feels like a swat on the hand. "I couldn't stay, you must have known that―everyone knows you, you attract attention… I needed to cover my tracks."

"Yes, I know now. I didn't know then." He watches the man start to pace, with little aim.

"I even sent you your scarf back! As soon as I could, like, stand up."

"I got it just today."

Glanni stops in his tracks. "Shit." He lets out a sort of groaning huff. "Well, the postal service is beyond my control."

Íþróttaálfurinn tries to put aside how, if he didn't know better, it would sound like the man is trying to justify himself.

"There were rumours," Íþróttaálfurinn explains instead, hoping the man isn't already regretting sharing his shelter with him, all the buried things he's digging out. "Lots of contradicting stuff―but mainly, that you were in debt with the wrong people, and as good as dead. I know you didn't do it on purpose. It just happened, the circumstances had me worried."

"So you do know. You know that staying _dead_ is the only way I can stay alive, for now." He merely nods, and after a moment Glanni speaks again. "I still don't know how you played this round of the game. Tell me about it?"

"About…" he hesitates. He got used to not considering it part of the game anymore. "About what happened overseas? Why?"

Glanni shuffles over to the decrepit space-heater, pulls the dish with the candles near, and starts tinkering with it, taking off the back panel to reach inside. The thing creaks, as if in pain.

"Humour me," he says, and Íþróttaálfurinn stops himself from asking him if he's sure, really, really sure. Maybe he just wants to gauge how much the elf knows, confirm the discretion of his return. He sighs, gathering himself.

"Well, your scheme here in Latibær was supposed to get you out of debt," Íþróttaálfurinn starts, "but only made it worse. Orders made the rounds, and you weren't safe anywhere here anymore." He dares a glance in Glanni's direction, and the man gestures for him to go on, eyes down on his candle-lit work. "Not a lot of places to hide over here, aside from the wilderness."

"You would know, _hidden folk_ ," Glanni says. The little machine gives a spark, and an ancestral shiver runs up the elf's back.

"So you ran," he continues, voice catching. "You found your way across the Ocean. My sources can't say how exactly. There's no trace of your crossing, no record."

It crossed his mind, at times, that he might have dreamt the whole thing up. It was more plausible than a human traveling 3,000 miles and leaving no trace, somehow, even if that human was Glanni Glæpur.

"I stole a ticket," Glanni says simply, lifting the veil of mystery to reveal the trick underneath. "I'm a good impersonator."

"… of course." He should have known, he guesses. He clears his throat, and continues, "Then, you either got caught, or let yourself be caught."

"Second one," the man says with a lopsided smirk. "I was after some information. Wasn't worth it, let me tell ya."

"You couldn't find your way out in time" Íþróttaálfurinn finds that he can't really look him in the eye saying this, can't allow himself to really think about all the ways the unthinkable could have been avoided. "The reach of your collectors was longer than expected."

Glanni only smiles, his tilted face catching the light, sunken with demonic shadows. The thing gives another wheezy, pained spark. "I swim with long-finned sharks."

The elf inhales, exhales. "The oath-breakers picked up the orders." He swallows, not caring anymore if his voice wavers and cracks. "Then you ran, and let me find you. Then ran again."

How strange the world has gotten, he thinks, drying the sweat from his upper lip, that he would come to talk of horrific violence so nonchalantly. He watches the light liven Glanni's eyes again, after they had gone flat and distant for a moment.

"What they did wasn't even in those orders, you know? They were only supposed to, ah, _threaten_ me. Maybe rough me up a little. Nothing _specific_." Abruptly, the old space-heater comes alive in his hands, front glowing red in the half-light. "But I was lucky, everything considered. I'm always lucky."

Íþróttaálfurinn remembers his feverish eyes, so bright in the low light of that alley, and wonders if Glanni's sarcasm has become too subtle for him to detect, like the smell of his scarf for human noses.

"Lucky," he echoes, voice trembling.

"Yes, I still have all my useful bits about me, see?" Glanni says, rocking back to wiggle his toes and fingers. "Could have been broken bones, could have been a fat meal for the dogs―" He shudders. "Well, it's more convenience than luck, actually. Can't have a debtor run off _or_ die of sepsis―gotta hit that sweet middle, you know? And it won't reform a criminal, but sure does a good job at breaking one's spirit." His shoulders drop. "Well, most spirits."

Íþróttaálfurinn's guts twist into knots, that sickly urgency upon him again. He wonders if he, too, had something hidden in his tone, that compelled the other to tell him all this when he clearly doesn't want to.

"It's just so unbelievable that―" he halts, realizing he sounds naïve and, worse, disbelieving. "I just would have never thought… that humans who took an _oath_ to protect would just―break it like it means nothing."

Glanni just shrugs, the gesture derisive, somehow. "They can't be all Lolli, can they?" he says, sneering almost affectionately. Colder, he continues, "No, human police will never be the Elven Guard or whatever. An oath is a promise, nothing more than a given word."

"Heroes League," Íþróttaálfurinn corrects automatically. "We give our word, too, and nothing more."

"Humans don't do well with those, never have. Some other shit always gets in the way. Money, or power, or what have you. Mostly money."

"Even with something so evil?" Íþróttaálfurinn asks, always darkly impressed that such a simple thing can move so much, and bring so much suffering. From the miner, to the oath-breakers' ring, to Glanni's own trade, it all circles back to that miserable flimsy paper.

"Especially for that. It was nothing personal." With a strange glint in his eye, Glanni says, "Maybe I should take it as flattery, even."

"How could―how could such a thing ever be flattering?" the elf gasps, the mere idea making his skin ripple with revulsion. He cannot imagine anything more personal, and less flattering.

"Well," Glanni says, lifting a hand to scratch behind his shoulder, " _Mr. Biter_ here, was into it. Can't really say for the other two, but him―well. And it makes it easier, when it all goes back to plain old fucking, you know? That's always been easy―you can just numb out if you get bored. That's why I'm like, barely affected."

For a long moment, the elf just looks at him, brain scrambling for something to say. He knows exactly who _Mr. Biter_ is. The other two, as well, he knows their names and knows what they've done and what has been of them. He wonders if numbing out if something the other has to do often, to stay alive, in all senses of the term. He wonders if the bluntness, too, helps him go on.

 _Barely affected_. Low and charged, he says, "You almost died."

Glanni shoots him a startled look. Íþróttaálfurinn gathers that he's doing something wrong, contradicting him as he tries to fold the unthinkable smaller and smaller until it's not there anymore.

"But I didn't." He grins that wide, stretched grin that hurts somehow. "Nobody knows, but I'm still here."

* * *

 _Mr. Biter_ isn't the oath-breaker's actual name, of course. But it might as well be. An unremarkable man with an unremarkable foreign name, printed on a neglected newspaper page. If Íþróttaálfurinn had grown to feel a begrudging respect for Glanni Glæpur's criminal trade, to recognise the skill and art of it, then a man like that would be at the opposite end of the scale. A crooked cop, ear pressed to the earth for every rattle of the criminal underworld, reaping what benefits he could, protected by his order and the false words he has given, taking none of the risks.

At least, Glanni acknowledges his occupational hazards, the degree of personal risk that comes with his line of work. That's why Íþróttaálfurinn had to go behind his back to find more about what happened, keep everything vague with the League's representatives to protect his nemesis' privacy. It was sad and yet convenient, that so many other victims came forward and were willing to testify, and that heroes are not supposed to pick favourites regarding who to help: the welfare of prison inmates still falls under human welfare.

It didn't take long for the League to confirm his word and make its intervention, and to mail him back a newspaper clipping with three small mugshots. The three oath-breakers, two guards and a cop, almost offensive in their dullness, were found guilty. Their system blown to the light, the men and their associates had passed to the other side of the bars, where they belonged. Justice was done.

Once he saw those faces―they branded his memory in a way faces rarely did―like a delayed explosion, all the fury that didn't hit him before mounted inside him. His heart raced, his vision tunnelled, he felt his teeth bare in a snarl. Every ounce of discipline he had, he used to stop himself from making the trip back and, literally and metaphorically, take the matter into his own hands.

Sometimes, he will admit, he had wanted to bash some parent's face down in their gross dinner―but it was rare and unwelcome. As a hero, he is happy to fix crises, provide means end teachings and encouragement, and forgo the long-term maintenance. Most of the time. It is a dangerous game to play, for a hero to shift his priorities. He knew it then and he knows it now that everything is resurfacing. Yet, it was so sweet to imagine, showing those men exactly what he thought of their _methods_. Sweet and frightening, in the way power-fantasies usually are, giving him the same fierce joy that thoughts of escape used to give him, when he was a number.

In this fantasy, he is there, physically, he gets to get his hands dirty, he gets to _fix it_. His hand clenches around the oath-breaker's windpipe, hard enough to crush. _How dare you,_ he'd hiss, allowing himself to be vicious and careless, like the ancient ones of his kind. Allowing himself power over life and death. _How did it even cross your mind, that you were worthy of touching him?_

It puzzled him, this question that he kept finding in himself. Did he expect flair and glamour from these oath-breakers too? Like they could somehow be more _worthy_ of hurting his nemesis, had they oozed less squalor? The mere thought made him sick. And every time the vision visited him, he would see Glanni's pale form, lying on his side in a painful knot of limbs, covered in coal handprints.

But justice is already done this time―and it holds no satisfaction―and heroes can't afford to be careless, cannot claim that power for himself. This could never be about revenge, he tells himself once more, once again. It couldn't be a matter of worthiness. He doesn't know which upsets him more: the killing instinct, awakened, or the dark possessiveness of his yearning, awakened. _Compromised_ , his file would say, if the League could see into his head.

* * *

"I shouldn't have been surprised, that you thought it was all a trick."

Glanni's voice, a little less sure after his long silence, pulls him back to the present.

"So many bad coincidences―it does look arranged," he continues, letting out a small, nervous laugh. "Shit, maybe _I'm_ the one who got conned and I don't even know."

Íþróttaálfurinn starts. "No, really, that was all me," he says, shaking off the stormy, swirling thoughts. "You were right, I didn't expect seeing you here. It made me wary of your intentions. Not my brightest moment."

"Íþró," Glanni says, kind of earnestly, "I couldn't be in your debt any more than I already was. Besides," he says, forcing a smile, "I always know when I've overstayed my welcome. I'm overstaying here too, as we speak."

Íþróttaálfurinn shoots him a glance. "You just got here. Nobody wants you to―"

"I lied, earlier," Glanni says out of nowhere, cutting him off. "I was trying to rile you up. Find out what you _really_ think. Find out if you would do something stupid."

"What are you talking about?"

"I didn't borrow any time, in _Storíbær_."

Íþróttaálfurinn imagines his own face as the epitome of confusion, because the man elaborates, "I couldn't, even if I tried," he says, speaking to the heater. "And believe me, I tried. Nothing's working."

There is a distant ringing in the elf's ears, like a sheet of icy rain coming down at once.

Somehow, he finds it in himself to ask, "Why… why would that… rile me up? It's your business, I was just concerned about your health, that's all…"

At the look Glanni gives him, equal parts calculating and exasperated, his voice drifts off by itself.

"On my side of the game," he starts, "my acquaintance wasn't happy to see me at all, let alone _thrilled_. I just called in an old favour. She's a med student, knows her stuff. Got some bloodwork done, antibiotics, painkillers―the usual. I crashed in her basement to sleep it off for a couple of days." He lets out a small, mirthless laugh. "Then I resuscitated her old wreck of a car, to secure my next favour. There are many ways to buy time, you know."

A flock of images rise in Íþróttaálfurinn's mind at that simple, rattled off description of what has surely been a hellish time. A part of him is relieved that the man has at least sought out medical attention. _Not so reckless_ , he could remark. _Why are you telling me this_ , he mainly wants to ask. _Why are you still justifying yourself_.

"Well, I know now," he says evenly.

Glanni doesn't seem to have heard him. "I mean, who do you think stopped that godawful noise your hot-air fart was making? You zoned out and pedalled between gears for I don't even know how long―gave me motion sickness, on top of everything else."

"That was _you_?"

"Who did you expect? Santa Claus?"

"No, I―" He halts, shifts, mumbles. "Thank you, then?"

"You're _welcome_."

There is a stretch of silence, charged, uncomfortable. As Glanni picks up his box and rustles in it, the elf notices his own socks are a little damp with sweat, and will easily also murder someone by morning. The rest of him, too, cooled sweat a now dry film in the dusty air of the attic.

"Go test the shower, will you?" the man orders, reading his mind, shoving a bundle in his arms. "Check if the water pressure is good."

The now familiar mallow-scented soap, loose slacks and a plain white t-shirt. All from the Mayor, as he is the only man in town rivalling Glanni in height. And here it is again, the absent-minded kindness, sharing what little he has.

Or maybe, Íþróttaálfurinn wonders, he just wants to have him out of his sight for a moment.

* * *

The water pressure is a disaster.

As if to compensate, the smallest nudge of the faucet handle turns the water near-boiling. The old pipes groan reproachfully at Íþróttaálfurinn as he washes up quickly, the yellow scarf brought along with him under the weak lukewarm stream. He can scrub the alley smell from the fabric, but he cannot shake the fear that the other will disappear while he mucks about in the tiny windowless bathroom.

He dries up and shrugs on the borrowed clothes as fast as possible, and all but yanks the door open. Glanni is there, pushing the couch forward, away from under the eave, until it's directly under the skylight. Relief floods his senses for a brief, intense moment.

"Better, right?" Glanni asks, looking up. "I just thought that— _ears_!"

The elf has no time to notice anything else. His nemesis is leaping towards him, whispering _can I, can I, can I_ , and wiggling his nimble fingers, and it should be _terrifying_. It isn't. Íþróttaálfurinn bows his bare head for him, even if there's no need, and both of Glanni's hands skitter into his hair, thumbs stroking the tips of his ears and behind.

"Always good to see them… why are they going all red?"

"Because you're touching them."

Glanni gives a devious smirk. "Kinky."

The elf snorts. "You know it's not like that."

"Oh, it never is," the man says, with an eye roll.

It _is_ pleasant—when someone trusted does it—but it's a back-rub sort of pleasure. Makes him want to reciprocate, to wrap his arms around the other and rub him in return. To let his forehead nuzzle in the warm folds of his sweater, in the crook of his shoulder. He lets out a long sigh, and picks up something unfamiliar on his next inhale.

"Have you… been out?" he asks haltingly. The man stops his attentions, muttering _fucking elven nose_ , under his breath.

"Yeah, I went downstairs to meet our host," he explains, stepping away before the elf can do anything to keep him there. "And before you ask: no, I didn't wake her, she's reading. And no, I didn't rob her, she wanted me to take the carpet upstairs."

"Carpet?"

Íþróttaálfurinn finally takes a new look around the room, and feels like he stepped out the bathroom into a different dimension. He hangs the scarf to dry from one of the beams, and folds his day clothes inside the breastplate, taking in the space around him.

The room now looks like something from one of those weird minimalist catalogues Nenni's mom keeps at her studio. There is an old carpet under the arranged sleeping area. The coffee table has been moved in front of the couch, the decrepit heater seems to be running, optimal angle spreading a pleasant warmth. The boxes and furniture are pushed back out of sight.

"We have to tell Siggi to bring her some Christmas cookies, she says, by the way," Glanni adds, shaking the elf from his momentary stupor.

"Hmm, better not too many, though," Íþróttaálfurinn says automatically, still marvelling at the room. "Siggi and his grandma are _very_ alike."

"Let the woman have her cookies, elf, she's _ancient_." Then, in a quiet and pensive tone, he says, "Man, I'm gonna miss playing house with you, when we go back to normal."

Distinctly, Íþróttaálfurinn feels his heart fall. He makes it sound like they've been playing house for years, falling into habits and routines, tag-teaming life like a mission.

"Back to normal…" Searching for the man's gaze, forcing himself to be direct, he asks, "Do you want to go back to being enemies?"

"I want to go back to the game!" Glanni says with a strange cheerfulness. "To fun things! We're always talking about work anyway. We aren't that good at this truce business."

"I thought we were doing okay," he says timidly, and the man just _tsks_.

The elf looks at him, thinking of _occupational hazards_ , of words uttered between laughs and sobs. He tries to imagine it, the _normal_. Giving chase again, giving Glanni a head-start, following him through all the dirty city undergrounds. The dingy bars and fancy penthouses, the familiar stage of their strange dance. He tries to imagine tipping off his location to the police, like he used to do, back when the idea of armed men busting in on Glanni in the middle of the night was just part of the game, instead of the stuff of nightmares. He imagines calling him _Glæpur_ again.

"Glanni," Íþróttaálfurinn stammers, the name alone pulling everything out of him, already tinged in apology. He breathes out, "I… don't think I can play like that anymore."

Glanni's face transforms, the look of challenging, humorous stubbornness melting into anguish in the blink of an eye. The lost man blinks at him with his transparent eyes, going wide with surprise, even hurt.

"You backing out now?" he asks, in a loud forceful whisper. "Why―wasn't it good fun? Don't you want to go back to how it was? To this summer?"

Íþróttaálfurinn thinks back. The wild banter, the disguises, the odd places they found themselves in, like in the world's strangest game of hide-and-seek. The mental challenge of being one step ahead, only to discover the other was three steps ahead in the other direction. The schemes built and crushed, like sandcastles. The secret, knowing smiles.

He thinks of that touch of undercover complicity, when chance brought their interest to align and they would, for a brief moment, be allies, dance their secret dance at someone else's expense. Work together, win together. He had grown to like the way Glanni looked at him when they weren't enemies, even back when he didn't know what to make of the uncomfortable warmth in his gut.

It was a glamorous, exhilarating handful of months, and he got so addicted to it he started to resent when his crystal would call him elsewhere, when Glanni wasn't involved. It was the kind of thing that couldn't last, and the kind of thing that would drag on until stopped, even if they never wanted it to stop.

"It was… different," he admits. "I never had a _nemesis_ before. The older guys talk about how it is, when you find one, how it changes… _everything_." He gives Glanni a nervous smile, that Glanni doesn't reciprocate. "It was good. It was challenging. But it has to stop, because now―"

Glanni bristles, expression hardening in a moment.

"Now _what_?!" he hisses. Agitated, he puffs up like a scrawny cat trying to look threatening. "Is some roughing up all it takes to make you go all _soft_ on me? Should have paid somebody to deck me in the face _ages_ ago."

Íþróttaálfurinn thinks of the squalid reality of both their lives, belonging nowhere, nose deep in other people's business to put aside their own, strays of a different breed, of the same lonely strain. Part of the land but lost somewhere, chipped off, untethered.

Then, Glanni's voice lowers, colder. "Or what, I'm just not _good enough_ anymore, now? You think I'm _weak_?"

Íþróttaálfurinn shakes his head. "No―it's not you. I just can't trust these people's oaths anymore. I can't put you at that much risk again."

He looks up at him, hoping to find understanding, finding a wall. And underneath, that visceral fear that soaked through the yellow cloth hanging behind him, like a defeated flag.

" _Put_ me at―? I _hate_ this," Glanni hisses, pushing his jaw forward in that stubborn way of his, words sharp between his teeth. " _I hate this_. You're a goddamn coward."

The elf exhales, chest aching. A while ago, he would have retaliated at that insult. Now, he knows it's not the time, not the way. Something makes a noise like a rain-stick, maybe the snow on the skylight.

"If you want to call it cowardice, then yes," he says heatedly, arms trembling at his sides. "How can I chase you down and bring you to justice, if all I want to do is―"

"You can't _do_ this!" Glanni jumps over his words, almost yelling. "If I'm your _nemesis_ , you can't just toss me aside like this, you can't let a single, meaningless thing just _change_ every―what's that _damn_ noise?"

Íþróttaálfurinn finally registers that his crystal has been calling him from the bundle in his shed armour for the past few minutes.

"It's my mail beacon," he answers grumpily, looking around for a way to get the mail to reach him.

Then the sound from above becomes more insistent, and he sees the mail-tube tap into the glass with pointed insistence. He opens the skylight, letting in a whirl of snow and crisp winter air. The mailer settles in his hands, and he scrambles to open it as soon as he notices the League's crest at the top.

The man asks, "Is it some hero emergency you have to go fix?"

Íþróttaálfurinn's heart clenches at how… angrily hopeful Glanni sounds. He wants him to _leave_ , and he shouldn't have come here with him, in the first place. He shakes his head no, for honesty's sake if nothing else.

He finishes unrolling the tube, letting a small, passive-aggressive Christmas card rolls out in his hand, and a foreign newspaper clipping flutters down to the floor.

He has barely the time to register that the card is in English―and look closer at the seal to confirm: overseas division. _Shit_.

"Wait―" He lunges forward, but Glanni has already bent to pick the clipping up.

It seems that, festivities or not, his community has his back: one of the newspaper scraps he followed overseas has now followed him back, and elves are known for their many talents, but good timing isn't one of them. Glanni turns the clipping in his long fingers, and freezes.

Íþróttaálfurinn holds himself back from ripping it from his hands, even though his instincts are screaming at him to make the familiar three mugshots stop staring back at Glanni with their sullen, indolent inky eyes. Glanni's breathing has halted.

"This… it's― _them_ ," he rasps, drawing in a shaky gulp of air, face gone ashen. "Why would your people send you this?"

In a spark of clarity like a lighting spearing the night, Íþróttaálfurinn realizes the other doesn't know anything about the oath-breakers' fate―and Íþróttaálfurinn never thought he would have to be the one to deliver the news.

"And why _here_ …? Wait." An immense horror dawns on him. He spreads his arms, encompassing the whole attic with a horrified gesture, waving the paper wildly. "Does… does _everybody_ know? Is that why they're being _nice_ to me?"

"What―no," Íþróttaálfurinn hurries to say, alarmed. "No one in Latibær knows. None of my people either. I haven't told anyone―I never made your name for the investigation, I swear."

"Investigation―? What have you… _oh no._ " Íþróttaálfurinn has never seen instincts conflict so clearly on someone's face before, as he watches Glanni discard fight and shock and contemplate flight, eyes darting up to the still-open skylight. "I'm dead―they know I'm here, I'm _dead_ ―was this a _trap_? All along?"

 _Oh no_ , the elf's mind echoes. "No, absolutely not!" Íþróttaálfurinn gasps, a painful twinge in his stomach. "When have I ever set traps for you? Just let me―"

"I knew I shouldn't have come back, I knew it―" he repeats frantically, voice going lower, sentences less constructed. "It's not safe here, I've got to go, I've got to hide―they're gonna be here any minute, they―"

"Listen, no one is―"

"Not even a day to rest―how long do I have to―"

Íþróttaálfurinn leaps, shutting the skylight with a piercing _clack_.

"They're _dead_ , Glæpur!"

It wasn't really a shout. He hopes. Everything goes still anyway, and Íþróttaálfurinn feels his own voice echo, rippling like shock-waves in the small attic. Stunned into silence, the man blinks slowly, looking from him to the window, to the newspaper, back to him.

"… d-dead?" he whispers, looking like he might wake them up if he speaks too loud. "What, all of them?"

Íþróttaálfurinn hurries to nod. "All three." He points at the paper. "Beaten to death. They don't know who, yet―other inmates, probably. I doubt anybody is going to look into it too close."

Glanni frowns. "The _other_ inmates? Were they in jail as in… _in_ jail? Like, locked up?"

"Yes. The League found all their other victims, and got them convicted."

"I knew there was something I was missing…" Glanni trails off, pulling away from the elf, swaying a little on his feet. He covers his face, newspaper clipping fluttering to the floor. "All this time… they've been locked up all along…"

"Glanni," Íþróttaálfurinn says softly, inching closer, as though trying to coax a wild animal. "I wasn't keeping it secret―I didn't mean for it to come out like this, really."

The man's shoulders are shaking hard, and he mentally prepares to see him in tears again. He gives his arm a gentle nudge, trying to move his hands away. A huge, maniacal grin flashes white at him.

"I _knew_ it!" Glanni announces gleefully. "Hah! I knew my boys wouldn't let me down!"

He lets out one of those broken, raspy laughs that takes the elf right back to the alley, to the red tinge of his desperation.

"What are you talking about?" Íþróttaálfurinn asks, a little terrified. "You… planned this?"

For a long, uncomfortable moment, Glanni just _laughs_.

"Oh, I _wish_ ," he says fiercely, a wild light in his eyes, the storm awoken. "Boy, they would eat that sad choir stuff right up in that prison, these burly convicts just _bawling_ , I had so many fans―it was _glorious._ Someone was _bound_ to avenge my tragic demise."

 _A golden throat, that one has_.

"You _sang_ for them," Íþróttaálfurinn says, incredulous. "And the alliances you formed were strong enough for them to _kill_ for you?"

"Yes, well." Glanni's ear-to-ear smile fades a bit. "I just vanished, they must have thought they shot me behind the barn, or something. And it's not like anybody _liked_ those officers, in the first place… they treated everyone like shit. Targeting everyone's favourite entertainer was a stupid mistake." The grin falls, leaving a strange haunted look on his pale face. "Their last mistake, hah. _Dead_."

Íþróttaálfurinn squints at him, trying to see past the oily film of shock-induced cheerfulness. Something's wrong. Glanni isn't just pale, he looks queasy. And in a moment, Glanni lurches forward, then dashes off, hand clamped on his mouth, running for the bathroom like his life depends on it.

The elf goes after him, but the bathroom door slams shut in his face, sending him flat on his back. As the door bounces back open, creaking, he just lies on the floor rubbing his forehead. He cringes in sympathy at the sound of retching and breathless coughing.

"What a waste," he hears Glanni say, not bothering to close the door again. "These assholes just don't want me to keep food down, do they? Even from the damn grave. _Ew_."

Íþróttaálfurinn scoots on the floor, sitting just outside the bathroom threshold.

"It's… it's over now," he tries, not knowing how helpful it would be. His body itches to lean forward, and rub his back in soothing circles, dry the sweat from his forehead. Instead, he says, "Nobody knows you're here, nobody can come get you. You're safe."

The man nods, his hand running through his hair absent-mindedly, elbows propped on the bowl like a bar counter. He spits and reaches for the rusty chain, looking down into the swirling depths of the toilet bowl, like it can bring him answers.

"I need to shower," he says coldly, just as the elf inhales to speak.

Íþróttaálfurinn pulls the bathroom door shut.

Instead of getting up, he rolls on his back, lifting his legs and hips up in a straight line, until he can imagine he's touching the ceiling with his toes. He does this a few times, balancing up on his nape and shoulders. He sighs.

Should he go? He contemplates the prospect of solitude, wondering why it feels like ice in his guts. He hears the water start running, with a groan of old pipes.

The newspaper clipping finds its way into his hand when he stretches his arms back, mocking.

* * *

Notes: in turn, getting Glanni to open up is (quote) akin to peeling an onion while wearing oven mittens.  
Chapter title from Vienna Teng's _Drought._


	6. That dust is gonna settle your nerves

Shower of angst, crumbling façades, and complicated feelings.

(TW: really heed the tags, for this one)

* * *

Íþróttaálfurinn ignores the first few thuds.

It might just be the old house. Floors and walls and piping, all creaking and groaning, protesting their presence. Or maybe welcoming it, who knows. Old houses are known for their unpredictability.

He should ask Glanni what he thinks, when he comes out of the bathroom. He's been in there a while, hasn't he? But it's only a guess, and none of his business. The two of them might not have the same definition of _a while_ , even. He stretches, touching the ceiling with his fingertips, stifles a yawn.

He can feel himself get sort of drowsy, ready for a new sleep cycle. He hasn't slept as much as he normally does, and has strayed very far from his usual rhythm. The chamomile is doing its part too, he suspects. He picks a couple of activities that don't involve jumping—crunches, some sets of push ups—whatever won't make the ceiling flake off on Siggi's grandma's head, whatever will keep him awake.

 _Thud_ , then a muffled imprecation. Íþróttaálfurinn halts mid-movement, lifting his forehead from the carpet, suddenly wide awake. No mistaking this one for the opinion of an old house.

Hesitating, he makes his way to the bathroom. Knock? Ignore? Leave? The shut door in front of him might as well be a wall and, once again, he wonders if there is a hint he isn't getting. Doors, as a concept, are confusing by design―wooden boundaries that open and close, split and transform. As far as symbolic and physical delimitations, he'd prefer windows. They allow for the continuity between spaces, for a see-through, less stark separation.

The children know nothing anyway, he reminds himself, it's not like they'd be upset if he leaves now and pretends he and Glanni simply went their separate ways in the night. They still think the two of them barely tolerate each other, they know nothing of the history they have been cultivating in the shadows, like an obsession kept secret. Do they? Or maybe, Íþróttaálfurinn is looking for a reason, a convenient excuse to run away again from his own discomfort, this time without the guilt snapping at his heels. It won't work, he knows. It never does.

Another noise, followed by a familiar, distinctively peeved grunt. Something inside him whines pitifully instead of snapping, and isn't deterred in the slightest by the set of handstands he pulls right there by the door.

"I can hear you _hovering_ ," comes Glanni's voice from behind the door, startling him off balance.

"I wasn't!" Íþróttaálfurinn retorts. Silence. The water stops running. He pulls seated, bouncing nervously in place, before finally caving in. "Everything okay, in there? I keep hearing―" _Thud_.

"Just _peachy_! I just keep knocking my elbow into the― _ow, fuck_."

The cursing, for some reason, gives him a minute stir of relief, despite everything. As Íþróttaálfurinn lets out a long exhale, climbing to his feet, the man's voice reaches him again.

"I don't suppose I could, uh…" A pause. The elf leans his ear closer to the door. "Can I get a hand in here?"

"Oh! Sure." He looks down, stomach tying itself into knots. His hand is already on the doorknob.

"Enthusiasm! Great," Glanni grunts. The water is running again as he steps inside and feels his ears grow hot at the remark.

On the other side of the door, the tiny windowless bathroom has been made into a climate of its own, straddling the line between tropical heat and foggy highlands. He has never been inside a volcano but this, he thinks―with the scalding steam and overwhelming smell of sulphur assaulting his senses―must come pretty close. Maybe a sauna, rather. It makes him yearn ardently for a dip in a placid, ice-cold pond. Breathing in the humid air, clothes dampening and adhering uncomfortably to his skin, he squints, momentarily blinded.

For a moment, it looks like there's no one here, and he has called out, _Hello?_ before realizing the silliness of it. A long, wet arm emerges from the curtain-less shower, grabbing onto the wall for support.

"Close the door."

Rising from his crouch in the cramped, sloped-roof bathroom, Glanni is a pale giant cloaked in steam, the top of his head brushing the ceiling, too tall to fit. The water has combed his body hair in neat inky swirls, all over his long limbs, and Íþróttaálfurinn has taken in the whole of him before could help himself, up to the disgruntled knit of his brow, and the sharp look in his eye that he immediately wants to avoid.

Íþróttaálfurinn blinks, looking up in the general direction of his face, stammering, "Should I… do you want me to cover my eyes, or―"

"Whatever." With an air of someone with no time for shenanigans, Glanni tosses a soaped brush into his hands. "Look if you want, just come here and do me a favour and scrub down my upper back, will ya? I can't reach all the way."

When he lifts his arm to reach back, he demonstrates, his elbow hits the ceiling. The showerhead is fixed to the taller wall, but it's still too low, and he can't fit under the weak, low-pressure stream if he twists or kneels.

Íþróttaálfurinn nods. "I see."

Upper back, that's where those bite-marks were, it makes sense. The healing skin must still be tender, difficult to work around without seeing back there. For someone just facing it, though, it should be a task easy enough. And it's a relief, really, that Glanni is actually taking care of… of his health, of himself. Definitely a relief.

Íþróttaálfurinn steps closer, and is like entering the glow of a fireplace, a pulsing, living molten core. Bare and unguarded and _look if you want_. He keeps his eyes down on the brush in his hands, running his thumb on the bristles, swallowing emptily. The hard plastic pokes like pine needles. _Isn't this too harsh to go on skin…?_ It takes Íþróttaálfurinn a moment to wade through his distraction, for his focus to shift to the incongruent object in his hands.

"… this is a coat brush," he points out after a moment. Glanni, who was about to turn around, pauses.

"Enthusiastic _and_ observant!" he jokes, but it comes out wrong in that familiar, splintered way. "I lucked out today, haven't I."

"No, I mean… why are you using this for washing?"

An eloquent eye-roll. "I left the loofah at my _other_ hideout? It's all I could find, that's why."

The elf tests the brush on his own arm, feeling the resistance of the hard bristles in his skin. Suds and water run down his fingers, uncomfortably hot and slippery. It takes nothing for the skin to scratch, raising small welts in the bristles' wake. Íþróttaálfurinn looks up, noticing that Glanni's chest and arms are flushed an aggressive pink too. He looks from it to the brush and back again, for a couple of moments.

Before he can say anything, Glanni spins around and urges him, impatience as palpable as the steam condensing on the old tiles. Íþróttaálfurinn looks up to protest, and the voice dies in his throat. He slaps a hand to his mouth to suppress a loud gasp.

"What is it _now_?" Glanni huffs. He glances over his shoulder, frowns. "… elf? Íþró?"

For a while, Íþróttaálfurinn is frozen in place, eyes trained to the man's upper back, unable to look away.

"Did… did something else happen?" he asks instead, when he finds his voice. His fingers circle the air, not daring to come near, and he's not sure the voice he found is his own. _Who did this,_ he wants to shout over the ringing in his ears. _Who dared_.

"What are you talking about? Hello?"

Íþróttaálfurinn closes his eyes a moment. He wants to think of something accidental. He doesn't want to take in the angle and the number of scratches… but somewhere in himself, he knows. The ground staggers under him, and for a moment he's certain the old house is going to come down under the burden placed on it.

He should have _known_ , he thinks, and his eyes burn. He should have known from the very start. That there is nothing accidental about this. That all the effort Glanni has been putting into being his old self, into appearing _barely affected_ , had to take its toll somewhere.

He draws his gaze up, to the line of Glanni's shoulders just at eye-level. And now it is here, a mess of raw, bleeding, scratched skin, right before his eyes. The toll.

The half dozen bite-marks that Íþróttaálfurinn last saw so new they were still bleeding—the scabs were fresh, the new skin still raw and fragile, barely tenting over the wounds—aren't healed yet. On the contrary, they have been scratched over and ripped and picked at so much they lost their contours, now a collection of misshapen red crescents surrounded by skin so inflamed it reminds him of a bad nettle-rash.

"Why?" he murmurs, incredulous. "What were you trying to do?"

"Uh… clean up? What else?" Glanni answers, oblivious.

"You're the cleanest I've seen you since I met you! And didn't you already shower at the Mayor's…?"

"Yes, twice. So what, are you keeping count? Creepy." He lets out a loud, throaty huff, like a man filled with exasperation. "And it itches sometimes… why are you being all weird about it? Do you need me to kneel so you can reach?"

Íþróttaálfurinn swallows, shake his head slowly. "No. I'm not touching it," he says low, his hand hovering where the angry red patches end, between the man's sharp shoulder-blades. "It's a wonder they aren't infected yet."

Unless, of course, they were infected to begin with, the ill intent of the man who left them passed over, when the teeth broke skin, like a snake's venom. He must be breathing too close to him, because Glanni hunches over with a shudder, bracing against the tiled wall.

"Finally grossed out, huh?" he sneers, voice full of spite. His body is an arch of angles and long, plunging lines, all aligning to twist and glare at him. "About time."

"They'll scar if you don't stop picking at them," Íþróttaálfurinn hisses back. "Is that what you want?"

"I just want them _off_."

The elf's chest constricts. He tightens and releases his grip on the brush handle a few times, thinking of the right words. He buys himself a moment leaning to the side to rinse the brush under the running water.

"You have to be patient, and let them heal completely before― _ah!_ What the—?!" He draws back with a hiss.

"Sulphur's good for skin things, don't you know?" Glanni is saying, voice airy and brittle. "Anti-something and shit."

Íþróttaálfurinn rubs his hand, his nerves not sure if he got burnt or frostbitten. Then, he sees the faucet handle is turned all the way to one side. Certainly not the cold side.

"Come away from there," he says. He steps back and makes to pull him away too, but the man shrugs him off, pressing himself into the wall and away from him. "Glæpur, it's _scalding_."

"It's fine," Glanni says with fixed-eye stubbornness. He has been standing directly under it this whole time, Íþróttaálfurinn thinks in half-panic. And it's certainly not the first time he does it, either.

"Is this what you've been doing? " Íþróttaálfurinn whispers, voice thick, sick to his stomach. "This entire time?"

"No, listen, do you know how hard it is to find a decent shower while trying to lay low?" The elf shakes his head slowly, helplessly. "Well, not that hard actually, but you know. Challenging. So what? I was on the run for a while, I feel _gross_ all the time―are you going to help me, or are you just gonna stand there?"

Íþróttaálfurinn looks at the cracked, floral blue tiles, yellowed by lack of use. He swallows the lump in his throat. "I'm not scrubbing bleeding wounds with a coat brush, Glæpur."

Glanni's eyes flash in anger. "Then you're _useless_ , I don't need you," he hisses, sounding oddly triumphant. "Give that back."

The elf's body takes a step back on its own, curving like he's been kicked in the gut. Glanni lunges for the brush, misses, and tugs both of their shoulders into the weak scorching stream. Íþróttaálfurinn's elbow hits the handle as he flinches away, avoiding the skittering hands that try to grab him. The pipes groan and the water turns icy, showerhead sputtering over them. They both let out a startled yelp.

"I can't let you do it to yourself, either," Íþróttaálfurinn gasps, reeling, the word _useless_ ricocheting in his mind. The coat brush clatters in the sink where he throws it. "It needs to be left alone!"

Glanni stands shock-still, making no move to take it. The fierce triumph has died in his eyes, leaving only a dim, miserable emptiness, breathing audibly in the steam around them. He doesn't move as the elf shuts off the water.

"What the hell was that?" Íþróttaálfurinn asks, quietly.

No answer. Rivulets of pinkish water run down the man's frozen figure. Slowly, he crosses his arms, caving in on himself, fingers digging into his biceps.

"Glanni."

"It's _your_ fault."

Íþróttaálfurinn gapes, kicked in the gut again. " _My_ fault?!"

Glanni rips a worn-thin towel from the rack, knocking it over, and starts to furiously scrub himself dry. Íþróttaálfurinn, still rubbing the scalded bit on his arm, feels the air leave his lungs again.

"I'm just trying to help―hey, _stop_ that, what are you―are you trying to take your skin off?"

He takes him by the wrist, tugging the towel away from him. Anger dances on the man's flushed face, scrunching his nose up like a snarling animal. He rips his wrist away, stumbling back, legs close to giving out from under him. Glanni flips the toilet lid closed and drops seated on it, a slap of damp skin into white ceramic.

"I fucking _wish_."

"I'm not letting you take your skin off," Íþróttaálfurinn says firmly. "It's perfectly good, functional, nice skin, and you need it. Will you let me patch up that disaster on your back, so there's a chance it won't scar?"

The man glares up at him, eyes cold and narrowed. "And why would you want to do that?"

"I just… I can't see you like this."

Good intentions, bad word choice. Glanni turns his face away, faking offense, hiding hurt.

"Don't look at me, then."

Íþróttaálfurinn swallows, scrambling for something, anything. Almost petulantly, he says, "You _called_ me in here."

"I am not exactly known for my good choices, am I."

The elf takes a deep, steadying breath. He will hold back from agreeing, or snarking, or cracking a joke, not this time―although he doubts the other is in a place to appreciate the effort. He focuses his attention on more practical matters: these are simple wounds, in the end, and those he knows well.

The Christmas care package is still by the door. Towards the bottom he finds a repurposed cookie tin. Inside, a packet of assorted plasters, cotton and gauze pads, and rounded kindergarten scissors. He feels many things, but mainly relief, and a rush of pride for the children's foresight.

"See? They know. They've got me and my bad choices covered," Glanni comments, peering from behind him. "How do they know me so well, those little shits?"

Íþróttaálfurinn can't bring himself to complain about the word choice. Said like that, with so much genuine puzzlement, it's almost a term of endearment. And now he sees how, even naked and hunched over on a toilet seat with his back scratched raw, how hard Glanni tries to sound at ease, shielded behind his own flair. In control.

Most importantly, the tin contains what Íþróttaálfurinn was hoping for in the first place. A small jar of handmade salve that he taught the children how to make in the mid of summer, as with the good weather came the tree-climbing, and consequent massacre of knees and elbows. It's made of almond oil, beeswax, and herbs from the elven village. It will stop any minor bleeding, not run, soothe and speed up healing. They bottled it in empty jars that once held some sugary comfiture. Good thing they made extra, he thinks. Opening it, he can smell his childhood―the good part―there, greenish yellow in that little jar.

"Fancy. I always just used rubbing alcohol," Glanni says, once he has explained the properties. "Or, you know, whatever alcohol I had on hand."

Íþróttaálfurinn shakes his head. "You already boiled yourself alive, so it's not bleeding much at least."

"See? Knew what I was doing. All along."

He doesn't have it in his heart to reply. He coats his fingers, leans slowly over, and sees him brace for pain.

"This won't sting," he reassures. Glanni blinks up at him in surprise, just for a moment. The frown is fast to come back.

"You don't need to… pretend, you know." His hands curl into fists, forearms a tense v over his thighs. "I can handle it."

The elf pauses, hand hovering. "No, really, it doesn't sting. I used it myself many times."

"Ugh―no, not that," Glanni groans. "I mean―being _kind_. To it―to me. Pretending it doesn't―that I'm not―"

He can't find the word he needs. In lieu of it, he flushes the toilet under him. The pipes groan and the hidden whirlpool brings him the word. He spits it out like a bite of mouldy fruit.

" _Disgusting_."

Íþróttaálfurinn's gut clenches for the third time. He crouches, one knee down on the wet floor, a little to the side so Glanni only has to lift his leg if he wants to cover himself. Glanni doesn't move an inch.

"Do I strike you as squeamish?"

"Well, _evidently_ ―"

"Glæpur," he calls, summoning the ghost of their old banter like a protective charm, "you kissed me in an alley behind a dumpster, with a breath that would have stripped the bark off an oak. I wasn't disgusted. Not then, and not now. With anything."

That seems to make a breach. The man's limbs spasm and he almost slips off the toilet seat.

"I―what?" Glanni gasps at him, scrambling to keep upright. "I did what, now?"

"You don't remember?"

Glanni shakes his head with a baffled shrug.

"And you just let me do it?" he asks, and huffs out a brittle, squeaky laugh. "What the hell?"

The cherry kiss is, for him, an oddly treasured memory. He looks at the man's spidery hands, dry and chafed with all the aggressive washing, clutched tight together, nails picking at the knuckles. He wants to cup them in his own again, feel them curl and hold on in his grip, open them and kiss where the winter cold will break the skin open. He lowers his eyes, to the man's feet. They, too, look pained, red with blisters and corns around the toes.

The whole of him washed up there, in Íþróttaálfurinn's town, all by himself, washed raw, walked raw. Íþróttaálfurinn looks at him, the dark circles and milk-spotted nails and the small folds of emptied skin that form in his abdomen when he bends, all the signs of ruin clinging to him, all bared in this crude, sallow light.

He remembers, the memory sharp as a vision, his nemesis at his peak, laughing at him from the roof of a tramcar. He remembers the river that ran alongside the road, the crunch of gravel under his feet, the light of the streetlamps waxing and waning behind Glanni's back, painting lightning in his leather coat, glinting off his perfect, mischievous smile. He remembers him shining in the city lights, brighter than anything around him. That would have been a good moment, he considers, to realize he felt more than tolerance, more than fondness.

But no, of course. It had to be now.

"You put a lot of trust in me, that night," Íþróttaálfurinn murmurs, careful, intense. "It surprised me. It taught me a lot about myself. I haven't been the same, since."

Glanni makes another sound that tries hard to be a laugh. "I don't know how you manage to sound _earnest_ , when you say these things."

Íþróttaálfurinn stands. When he carefully starts applying the first coat of salve, Glanni's next breath catches in a gasp.

"I didn't mean for you to be there when I―cracked. Not _again_ ," he breathes, tensing under his touch. "I thought I'd just… I don't know, either keep it together, or handle it on my own."

The elf halts for a moment.

"This really _is_ my fault, isn't it?" He runs his fingers alongside one of the scratches, nodding gravely to the shower still dripping with condensation. "What I said to you earlier, doubting you. The article they sent me, with the pictures. I made you do this."

"Don't flatter yourself." Glanni pointedly avoids his glance. "Nobody can _make_ me do anything."

Silence falls. Íþróttaálfurinn concentrates on coating up the area, watching the red placate and dim away under his hands. As the marks become evident again, stark enough to distinguish between upper and lower teeth, he blocks out the horror stories whispered in their depth and angle, lest he shudders and Glanni misreads his sorrow for disgust.

Shrewdly, Glanni observes, "So you really aren't squeamish."

"There's nothing to be squeamish about," he reassures. "And I've seen my share of scrapes and bites."

"Like these?"

"Not like these." The impenitent face of the dead oath-breaker floats up in his mind, and he has to breathe deep to calm himself. "But they will heal like any other, in time. If you leave them be and stop doing whatever you've been doing."

There is a long pause, in which he unfolds a gauze pad and lightly presses it in, until it adheres to the skin and covers all the marks, and the man doesn't flinch under his hands.

Then, Glanni says quietly, "I keep forgetting how much you've seen."

It sounds, just a little, like an apology. "Well," Íþróttaálfurinn says, biting down a timid smile, "I've never had to patch you up before now."

"It's 'cause I never got injured on your watch."

Glanni tilts his head back to glance up at him, the corner of his mouth curled almost sweetly. It's so incongruous, the softness in his eyes when being touched around his shoulders must feel like torture. But the man is, after all, made of incongruity.

"Sorry I called you useless."

To this real, actual apology, Íþróttaálfurinn can't really reply. Not in words, at least. He stops what he's doing for a moment, and leans down to brush his lips on Glanni's hairline. The gesture contains both acceptance and an apology of his own, even if he wasn't trying for either.

"Oh," Glanni says only. He sniffs, and after a thoughtful pause, tells him, "Your 'stache got droopy with all the humidity. You look like a depressed walrus."

The loud snort that comes out of his nose nearly startles him. "You call me useless _and_ ruin my styling. I don't know who lucked out today anymore."

"Still me," Glanni says, and Íþróttaálfurinn allows himself a selfish moment, all to himself and the army wife in his heart, to look at him and ache and _yearn_.

This man full of cracks, teetering back and forth, trying to keep himself in balance, tightrope walker looking up at the stars and not down, not forward. He is fighting so hard to keep himself stitched together, Íþróttaálfurinn can almost hear the faint leathery creak of his seams pulling apart. And now he's hanging, tilted, falling.

"I should have been more careful with you," he murmurs, almost to himself. "You have been making such an effort, and I didn't see it… I even got doubtful, because you seemed too _normal_ … I've been such a fool, and so cruel. I'm―sorry."

"That was the idea, Íþró," Glanni says weakly. "If you had noticed… if anybody had―if you have to be _careful_ , like I'm about to go to pieces or something… it means they've won."

Íþróttaálfurinn's chest constricts, and for a moment he cannot breathe right. And even the death of the oath-breakers, as vast and absolute as death can be, doesn't feel right, nor just, nor _enough_.

He kneels to scrub the crusted blood from under Glanni's nails, letting it fall in tiny flecks down the drain. It's methodical work, rinse and repeat, finger by finger.

 _Gross_ , Glanni says a few times, each in a smaller voice. _So gross_.

"It's not gross," Íþróttaálfurinn retorts, every time. He starts working the salve into the still damp hands, one at a time.

"I don't need any on my hands," the man protests, as his skin sucks in the moisture like cracked soil in the first rain.

"It's made for it. This winter is going to be a cold one, and your hands are already so close to bleeding."

The man blinks, frowning, raking his brain to articulate his protest.

"It's a waste," he says. "I should save it for when…" he trails off, gesturing to the concept of future injuries. "For―future stuff."

"You can have more of it," Íþróttaálfurinn promises, against his impossible hope that Glanni won't get hurt ever again. "We make it in batches at the village."

Íþróttaálfurinn's mind wanders off in a brief daydream, of bathing him in a big wooden tub, milk and elderflower in the water, soothing and healing his beautiful skin, making him whole and new. He'd wrap him in light linens and lay him on warm downy covers, dabbed in lavender oil for soft, soothing dreams. He'd stroke his hair in that way that makes him sigh, hold him until sleep comes.

"I really wasn't going to make it, you know, overseas? Not a chance," Glanni says, bringing him back to the present. "Either someone was going to come and do a mercy-kill, or I was going to―I just didn't want to die in handcuffs with some asshole shouting questions at me, right? Normal stuff." He speaks looking down at his own knees, free arm clenched tight against his abdomen. "Then you pulled a last minute on me, and I _just_ asked you for a bit of time. But _no_."

Íþróttaálfurinn lets go of his other hand, and asks, "Didn't I loan you time, like you asked?"

"You loaned me―I don't even know what you loaned me." Glanni shakes his head. "But you can't just… go around and make people _need_ you like this! Not _me_ , at least―I don't care what you do with others… but _I_ can't need you, I can't need _anyone_ , I can't afford it."

"… need me?" Íþróttaálfurinn's running thoughts tangle and trip and grind to a halt. Helplessly, he tries, "But I thought―I mean, it was _nothing_ , I just held you for a little while―"

"Íþró," Glanni cuts him off, such intensity in his voice the elf's mouth snaps shut. "I could never sleep with someone else there. Ever. And now, thanks to you, I can't sleep when I'm alone, either."

"Thanks to me? But―"

"Unless you're there, in my head." A deep, painful inhale, and Glanni looks up like he looked up at the sky and his eyes reflected clouds heavy with rain, like the admission is sapping all his strength. "Unless I remember… and you call it _nothing_."

Slowly, under the elf's astonished gaze, he mimics the motion of arms going around him. And there, like a lone light bulb short-fusing in his head, Íþróttaálfurinn understands.

" _Hell_ , Íþró," the man grits through his teeth. "You could have _fucked_ me in that alley, and I would have felt less naked."

For a moment, not a single one of the elf's muscles deign to work. A hundred sentences start and fizzle out in his mind, momentarily a chaotic tangle of rope that won't sort itself out.

"Oh," he says slowly, out the chaos, the emotion filling him a gigantic, unfathomable thing, crushing and frightening and too much to contain. " _Oh_ —you _idiot_."

He leans forward, both knees on the wet floor. Glanni―his nemesis, his stray, _his_ ―injured, in terrible pain, tossing and turning on some dingy borrowed bed, needing to summon a confused memory of his embrace just to get some sleep. Hating having to trust him, feeling as bare and afraid as Íþróttaálfurinn felt, when Glanni came rescue him out on the bench. Maybe more―definitely more.

He just never thought it could be terrifying, to be rescued.

Something in Íþróttaálfurinn… goes out, melting off his bones, his chest so full he's sure it will burst. He extends his arms, wide and forward, and hopes it will surprise him again, the bravery of a man he once believed a coward.

"Come here," he pleads, voice almost a keen, and Glanni somehow, somehow, from the depths of his own despair he reads him perfectly, because he _flings_ himself at him. "Oh, you must have been so afraid."

"I wasn't _afraid_ ," Glanni hisses, an edge of teeth into his shoulder.

"I didn't understand sooner―" Íþróttaálfurinn murmurs, pulling close. He is apologizing, he thinks, a string of words out of his own mouth right in Glanni's wet shoulder, and his arms wind tight around him, in a careful, urgent clutch. "I didn't understand anything… you idiot, if you just had _stayed_ with me, I―"

" _You_ 're an idiot," Glanni retorts, clutching back even harder. "You keep saying it, like it's easy, but how could I just _stay_? Just _let_ myself―how much more could I possibly show you? How much trust can I possibly put in you…? I don't have it. I keep thinking… I'm just making it harder for myself… once you come to your senses and―and I'll be left with all this debt, and no way to repay it, ever."

There is a dense, heavy pause, the silence broken only by their off-sync breathing in the cramped bathroom. Íþróttaálfurinn finds it in himself to look the other in the eye, and he finds something there, something small and bare, cowering back like a wounded animal.

"You thought I would leave you behind," the elf murmurs. "That I'd spoil your self-reliance and then just… toss you aside? That must have been terrifying―no wonder you ran first."

It's so direct―it would make anyone want to run. He would run himself, as fast as he could, if he were in Glanni's position. Independence is a stray's only religion, but it never served well either of them; a resource became a need, a need became a compulsion, and they were drawn to crash into each other, helpless and spinning, like tides with no moon to pull. This was all Glanni asked―he thinks, and he wants to cry―he suffered alone when all he wanted was this little thing, this small bit of comfort. He holds him closer still, mindful of the gauze.

"I can't breathe," Glanni murmurs, voice wheezy and a little touched with wonder. He tightens his own hold, wiry arms flung around the elf's neck, when Íþróttaálfurinn makes to pull away. "No―no, no, _no_ , don't you dare. You're _my_ prisoner now, no running."

It's Íþróttaálfurinn's turn to make a noise that tries its best to be a laugh. He manages a sort of wet, trembling chuckle.

"How the tables have turned," he tries to joke, happily obliging. He lets his lips touch the shell of one round ear. He echoes in a murmur, "No, no running. I'm not going anywhere."

He fits them, somehow, a little closer. He lifts a hand up to stroke up the man's nape and hair, and there is nothing quite like it, the feeling of Glanni _melting_ in his arms, his body an over-warm damp line behind the barrier of his clothes. Every inch of skin on Íþróttaálfurinn's body is yearning to touch as directly, to feel as intensely. Glanni's hair has grown half an inch at least, since the last time he saw him, hiding better the old scars on his head. He has two cowlicks at the back of his head, one on each side, like miniature black whirlwinds. It reminds Íþróttaálfurinn of the wind currents on a map. He lifts his face only to kiss him on the cheek and the side of his head, stroking his hair and arms and back with desperate intensity.

Then, in that cramped wordless space, full and secret and _safe_ , another admission crawls out of Glanni's throat.

He murmurs, "Something's wrong with me." He speaks into the elf's shoulder, not leaving the words even an inch to stretch. "I'm not myself anymore. It's like I'm walking on ice, and it's thin, and it's going to give under me any moment."

It brings Íþróttaálfurinn back to the crude light of the light bulb, to the uncomfortable dampness of his steam-soaked clothes. To the unthinkable thing that crouches giant and monstrous, spoken around and not spoken through, insurmountable.

"Hold onto me, I'll hold you up," he breathes, encouraging. But slowly, Glanni leans back from him, until his hands fall on the elf's forearms, thumbs hooked in the creases of his elbows, brow knitted in anguish.

He shakes his head. "I'll just drag you under with me."

"No, you won't," Íþróttaálfurinn says, and the long fingers squeeze his arms before letting go. "Tell me."

The man runs his fingers through his still damp hair, losing an inner battle.

"I don't get it, you know? Boggles my mind," he starts, then gestures vaguely at his middle, the yellow shadow of the beating that showed there. "I'm _fine_. Nothing broken. Blood still clean. I heal fast. And―I mean, it's not like I've never done it rough before."

He presents this list with a gesture of his open palm, like building a case to debate in court.

"So why the fuck am I so _afraid_?"

"Not all wounds are visible," the elf says, voice low. "Some are unseen, but no less deep."

"Like your coal mines?"

He nods. Íþróttaálfurinn thinks of the clemency he had to ask of his teachers and mentors, when he first started his training, to not give commands and instructions like they were orders. How hard it was to explain what his mind did, darting back to the scariest corners of his past like a spooked hare to the burrow.

"It takes time, and a lot of patience. It's difficult to pull off alone." He heaves a sigh. "But in time, even coal mines heal. You find peace again."

He thinks of how grateful and relieved he felt, when he was met with compassion and understanding. He thinks of the open sky through the envelope of his balloon. Of the simple acceptance and unbiased helping hands, fixing the unthinkable.

"But how do you _prove_ it, if it's unseen? I have proof for all of these, after all. Of my talent for survival."

Glanni tilts his head to the side, and his hand brushes vaguely over himself, tracing a few of the old and less old nicks that mar him. His nails, shiny with ointment, snag in the raised white lines of skin. So many signs of old fights, so many indications of the life he has lived.

"I saw you looking, searching. I have proof of my survival this time, too. I'll show you."

Íþróttaálfurinn realizes where this is going only when he follows the hand down, from Glanni's mask of determination to his shivering, parting knees.

"Wait, no," he gasps, hurriedly cupping his thighs in his palms, pushing them closed like the case of a heavy tome. He can't look him in the eye, but can't look down either. _Oh gods_ , his mind is screaming in horror, _oh gods, they left a scar._ He settles for the sharp, wet line of his collarbone, concentrating on the droplets collected there.

"You said you wouldn't be dragged under," Glanni reminds him, coldly.

Íþróttaálfurinn draws in a shaky breath. Much like doors, boundaries are strange and often mysterious. But Glanni, too, has learned his by observation only, and uses them as strangely as Íþróttaálfurinn himself. This is a test, of sorts, and there is something reassuring to that old pattern.

"You don't have to show me," he says, going with his gut. "You have nothing to prove to me."

The base of his throat hollows as the man gulps, and Íþróttaálfurinn lifts his eyes to look at him. His expression is hard, lips pulled tight.

"You don't want proof anymore?" he asks, to confirm, like they're at the last terms of a tense negotiation. The knees in the elf's hands tremble a bit with released tension.

"I have enough of it." Íþróttaálfurinn feels his voice soften, mournful. "And I shouldn't have made you feel like you needed to provide that much, either. I won't let it happen again."

Glanni's eyes slide shut, and for a couple moments he just breathes, going slack with relief. Íþróttaálfurinn strokes comfortingly down his thighs in time. He stops, when he realizes he's doing it. Boundaries, he tells himself, inner voice distracted, spinning.

"I didn't plan any of this," Glanni confesses. Something cracks in his voice as he speaks, hurried, like sand gathered before it spills. "It's just… you're the only one that _knows_. Because I let you find me—if you really didn't believe me, I wouldn't know what I'd do… keep convincing myself it didn't happen, I guess…? Because it wasn't really―"

Íþróttaálfurinn leans in. "It wasn't really?"

"Really _anything_." Then, panic. He's breathing fast, gesturing and shaking. "I-I mean, if you have imagined some great heroic struggle, you're wrong. I―it was a bad fuck more than anything, really."

"You don't owe me a justification, either," Íþróttaálfurinn says, shuddering. _Occupational hazards_. "You don't have to give me anything."

The unthinkable now crouches directly between them, huge and heavy and overpowering, and Íþróttaálfurinn can see the coal-prints on Glanni's body like they had been there the entire time. Down his back, round his wrists and throat, over the narrow arches of his hips. If he wanted proof, he simply should have willed―allowed himself to see, to read the thing as it's written in Glanni's reactions, his body left a minefield.

"Just making sure that if you don't start getting _ideas_ about, I don't know, _respecting_ me or some shit." He pulls both his heels on the edge of the toilet seat, hunched over like a pale, damp gargoyle. He sneaks a hand up, worrying the edge of the gauze on his shoulder. "I'm just the same dirty coward, like you've always thought―you're wasting your time being all nice to me."

Íþróttaálfurinn's heart squeezes painfully. He searches the man's eyes, tilts his head when he avoids him.

"No one has ever lost my respect for trying to survive," he says. "Bad sex leaves you disappointed, not half-dead in an alley. It doesn't make you want to take your skin off. It doesn't leave your mind full of open wounds."

"What are you, some sort of bad sex expert?"

The same defensive sneer that would have made Íþróttaálfurinn angry a month ago now only makes him ache. It makes him think about second motives, about the distance between choice and battle. Unthinkable things do a great job at breaking one's spirit, Glanni said himself. They leave one mostly whole, and yet in pieces, and Íþróttaálfurinn doesn't know how to fight it other than holding on with all he's got, look it in the eye and call it by its name, describing the shape of it until it descends from myth to reality, concrete enough to kill.

"You don't have to fight―you wouldn't even need to have scars, for it to still be ra—"

A very large, very oily hand slaps hard on his mouth, bending his moustache the wrong way. " _Don't_."

"But―"

"No, not now. I'll get there, okay? Just―not now."

Very carefully, Íþróttaálfurinn takes the hand off his face. He, too, has tried to fold monsters small enough to carry, then small enough to hide. He never succeeded.

"All right," he gives, running his fingers carefully over the man's tense knuckles. They feel a lot less rough, now. "All right."

Glanni doesn't notice, closing in on himself, going inward like a light dimming. Íþróttaálfurinn starts to get the same feeling he had in his balloon, of the need for distance and self-contemplation. The contours and borders of himself probably never felt shakier than now for his nemesis, he thinks.

He sighs in the growing distance, words of finality, draping the towel over the other's shoulders. Slowly, he draws back.

It doesn't take long. When Glanni emerges from the bathroom with the care package under his arm and doubts on his face, the change in air density has just finished expanding Íþróttaálfurinn's lungs.

Glanni is wearing some light old sweater, and the pants of a blue tracksuit. The newspaper article, that Íþróttaálfurinn was sure he had stashed away, is in his hand again. His brows are furrowed down in concentration, while he traces the lines and bites his tongue.

"Can you read this?" he asks, before Íþróttaálfurinn can open his mouth and try to convince him not to look at it any longer. The elf blinks.

"Sure, but―"

"I can read," Glanni feels the need to defend. "Only… it takes a while, the words get all," and he makes a descriptive gesture, crossing and waving his hands. "And I lose where I was and have to start over and it takes _so long_. That's why I've got a steel trap memory, you know?"

So, Íþróttaálfurinn reads the article aloud. At least Glanni isn't the only one to struggle, as he hasn't had to read a full paragraph in English in a while.

"As I said, it's vague," he finishes, shrugging. "They don't want too much attention on these matters."

The man is silent for a beat or two, as Íþróttaálfurinn folds the article small and puts it back in the mailer.

"Íþró," he asks, very serious, staring at the League's crest in his hands. "You really didn't… have them killed, did you?"

Íþróttaálfurinn shakes his head. "We aren't a hitman agency."

"You operate above the law just the same," Glanni says, with a dark gleam in his eye. "Heroes and villains, right? You could kill, if you wanted."

 _Oh, I wanted to_ , Íþróttaálfurinn wants to say, with frightening intensity.

"Your _fans_ did it," he says instead, giving credits where it's due. "The men that loved your voice enough to kill for you. I didn't even know they were dead until I got that letter. All I did was start an investigation, after what you told me. Some humans like to pretend they don't see, but the League makes everyone uncomfortable. Overseas division, especially. They shed light in some very dark places."

Glanni blinks at him, eyes gleaming in that strange way. "It seems like… I do nothing but darken your worldview, don't I?"

"I prefer it darker, if it's closer to the truth."

Glanni makes an odd, almost affectionate snort, shaking his head. "Even if life tried to knock it out of you, you're still an idealist."

He lowers his eyes. "Maybe you're right."

"It doesn't matter anymore," Glanni says, looking away. "They're dead. It means I win, right?"

The elf nods. He watches with worried eyes as Glanni's hand goes to his upper back, rubbing the skin though the fabric, rubbing the marks into submission. But lightly, without disturbing the gauze. He breathes out, and Glanni really focuses on him, tilting his head in a critical look. Íþróttaálfurinn wonders if the man has ever seen him without his armour on. Suddenly self-conscious, he runs a hand down the front of his borrowed shirt.

"I drenched you," Glanni says, summoning a bit of a contrite look. Then, he turns very serious. "Dragged you under the ice with me, in the end. Didn't even ask if you wanted to carry a truth so heavy."

 _This is nothing, there's no weight I can't carry_ , the hero in him wants to say, as the rest of him screams, _Help me, it's too much, it's too horrible, take it back, take it away_.

 _You're the only one that knows,_ says Glanni's voice, brittle under the strain of admission, teaching him what it really takes, to be that bare and brave and vulnerable.

"It's all right," Íþróttaálfurinn says, thinking he has to be brave, too, in return. He owes it to him. "I'll help you carry it."

The air has grown quiet, ready for rest. Glanni turns off the space-heater with a fond pat, and the old house creaks as if pleased to be a few degrees warmer. The shadows curl and quiet, the streaks of wax solidify on the snuffed candles. The snow collects on the skylight, semi-transparent.

Íþróttaálfurinn peels back the covers, revealing the sheets cool inside. As he originally pictured, they take a side each of the narrow couch.

* * *

Notes: I honestly don't know which is heavier, between this chapter and next one, but hey.  
Chapter title from Elbow's _Red_


	7. I need a reminder - feeling's escaped me

One of those nights where everything changes.

(heed the tags once again)

* * *

Íþróttaálfurinn wakes from a light, fitful sleep.

The night is snow-bright, the silent attic full of deep, velvety dimness. Even in the near-darkness, from the sound alone he can tell the snow has completely covered the skylight.

It takes him a moment to realize what woke him up. A creaking that isn't the floorboards, a shift in weight from the other side of the couch. Glanni, a silhouette in the dark, uncoils and stretches his legs with a groan, joints popping, and pulls upright.

Íþróttaálfurinn's eyes adapt to whatever scarce light is filtering though the cover of snow on glass, and he watches the man wander thought the small space like a sleepwalker. Glanni palms around soundlessly until he finds the leather armour, digging out the clothes Íþróttaálfurinn left folded inside.

"… Glanni?" he calls in an undertone, as his nemesis' restless hands pickpocket the mailer out of his pants.

The man doesn't jump at being caught. He doesn't even look in Íþróttaálfurinn's direction, busy holding the gaze of the three pictures with quiet, deathly defiance. The only answer he gives is the scratch of a lighter.

A shock of anxiety spears through the elf, unjustified: Glanni has done nothing but light a candle. And yet, Íþróttaálfurinn's guts clench in that painfully familiar way as Glanni's profile comes alive, stark and gaunt in the orange glow, tinting his own cast shadows a deep, muted blue. He has that _look_ in his eye, the look that made Íþróttaálfurinn wonder, for a moment, if the horror out on the Ocean couldn't be outrun because he had brought it along in his balloon. He is on his feet before he knows it, fighting the uneasiness through movement, stepping again into the silence that settles, heavy as dust, around them.

As Íþróttaálfurinn silently steps closer, Glanni lets the newspaper clipping hover over the candle. Only the flame, shivering in each of Glanni's exhales, removes the scene from its dreamlike stillness. Its proximity makes the paper see-through, overlaps the print into illegible scribbles, tricks the eye into demonic swirls on the oath-breakers' faces. Held solemnly, inexorably closer, the mugshots darken beyond recognition before catching fire.

Íþróttaálfurinn startles, watching the fire consume slow and then voracious, a bluish miniature tide, blackening the paper in its wake. All at once, the world shifts once more and the fire paints the attic as some ancient temple, shadows dancing wild on the walls, and Glanni, the _seiðman_ , sole custodian of the arcane ritual, binding the evil spirits to send them off into the night. _Be careful_ , he wants to beg him. _Evil is deaf to reason. It will not be contained._

Glanni lets go of the last little bit, cupping his hands underneath. The curl of ash lets off a few bright orange sparks, and flutters obediently into his hands. He exhales, almost putting the candle out, and the leaden weight in Íþróttaálfurinn's chest won't let him move an inch.

Then, the elf grabs the discarded mailer, in a gesture so sudden the crack in the atmosphere is almost audible. He gets out the cold, anonymous Christmas card, opens it under the man's joined hands. The pad of his thumb brushes Glanni's knuckles and the man jolts, looks at him with no semblance of recognition.

"Let go," Íþróttaálfurinn pleads.

The long, nimble hands open, in a gesture as direct as a child dropping bits of crushed petals. The remains of the paper fall into the card in little black flecks, leaving Glanni's fingers stained in ink and soot.

"Fire would do the trick, I thought," Glanni rasps. He sounds like he hasn't spoken in years. "I thought it would help."

"I'm sorry," Íþróttaálfurinn tells him, before knowing why. Every time one of them speaks, the candle-flame trembles into near-extinction.

Íþróttaálfurinn puts away the card and the man stays motionless, not hunched over and not standing straight, but sort of hanging, off-balance, unfinished. He looks arranged wrong, like something used to this shape that has suddenly lost the habit, that unnatural stillness in the air now too heavy, smothering. The clipping must have kept Glanni awake, a taunting presence in the corner, and Íþróttaálfurinn regrets not getting rid of it himself. His palms itch to cup Glanni's hands, unite them, pull him back into a single, perfect piece.

He steps close again, and Glanni's gaze flickers up to meet his.

"Íþró," he says, like he just noticed he's there.

"I'm here," Íþróttaálfurinn assures. This, too, without really knowing why, as the luminous grey gleams at him in the snow-bright penumbra, and he can hear the storm rattling in its chains. Glanni lifts a hand, and the elf feels icy fingertips trace the edge of his jaw.

"You want to help me," Glanni says, "even if I'm―even someone like me. You don't think I'm beyond saving." He cocks his head to the side, a hint of a smile sharpening, splitting his grave face. "You're a hero. If I fell, you would catch me."

His hands smell like bonfire, like forests burning, like the trace of evil bound. The man takes a step so close the pull of gravity nearly brings them to collide. Íþróttaálfurinn breathes in, wishing he could inhale the smell deep enough to halt the chills down his back. Glanni's sharp smile and his full lips glint in the dark, and Íþróttaálfurinn thinks of their touch so holy, of the bit of innocence trapped there, gifted and then forgotten. He imagines the faint black streaks on his cheek.

"Yes," he answers simply, chin tilted up to hold the man's gaze, and his voice also nearly trembles into extinction. "Yes, always."

He has no time to let the weight of his admission sink in. His mind is winding itself into dark, endless tunnels, the attic is caving in, the man is too close and then not there, and a sharp noise snaps him back into himself: Glanni's knees hitting the hardwood. His mouth dries like drought-struck land.

"Men aren't made of words," Glanni hums, smile stained red if only in spirit, looking up at him from under his lashes. "They are like machines, I can read them just fine. I know how they _work_."

Íþróttaálfurinn opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. The half-lidded gaze spears him in place, mute and paralyzed, as Glanni's hands shape to the arches of his hips.

"I can read _you_. I see you look―I see you hold back. You've been holding back for a while. I know you want _something_."

These are hands that know what they're doing. The icy skin is late to warm up, the touch of them now soft and supple, resting just above the hem of his slacks, a shock of cold against Íþróttaálfurinn's over-warm skin. Long, clever fingers knead in circles around his hipbones, tracing, slipping under the lent shirt, and the elf's spine tingles all the way down.

"So let me give it, then," Glanni continues, voice gaining confidence, hands gaining momentum. "Our interests align, don't you see? You'll get what you want, and you won't have to hold back anymore. And I…" he murmurs, a ghost of breath over his crawling skin, eyes fluttering shut. He leans in, his back a slow and fluid arch, a reptilian alignment of angles that shouldn't work but does, and presses his mouth to the elf's bare stomach. "And I… will finally feel _clean_ again."

The soft touch of lips strikes him through like lightning, tensing his muscles to stone. His body threatens to collapse, knees ready to give out, and he holds himself up out of sheer willpower. He chokes out a gasp as his nemesis, undeterred, starts to trail down, his breath searing-hot into the fabric.

"W-wait," he finally manages, when he soft red lips and clever fingers are already in the hem of his underwear, ready to speak their truth into existence. He closes both wrists in a shaky grip, leaning away, silencing them. "Stop this, it's―it's not the right time. It's not how it _works_."

"Oh, but someone has a different idea, here," Glanni drawls, with a sly nod to the elf's shame in his borrowed slacks. He makes no motion to free his hands, leaving them loosely curled, hanging by the wrists like they aren't his business.

"Someone will calm down if you leave it alone." Íþróttaálfurinn crouches down, a knee lifted to hide himself. It's stifling, but he's never been more grateful for the cover of half-light on his burning cheeks and ears and neck. "It will get like that from a gust of wind up in the balloon―I wouldn't listen to it, really. It's unreliable."

Confusion creases the man's forehead, narrows his eyes to a squint. "Are you _playing_ with me?"

"I'm not." Íþróttaálfurinn tugs the hands closer as the tendons jolt against his fingertips, joining them together in the careful cradle of his own. "I'm not, I would never."

"But you want _something_ ," Glanni insists, a deeply frustrated note in his voice. "And I want you to take it. I don't want to be _patient_ with it, you see? The assholes are _dead_ , and I'm taking my old self back. Right now."

Íþróttaálfurinn swallows, predicting what bit of news will be, again, his to deliver. That one can never emerge unchanged from the storm, as though it never touched him; that the skin that feels soiled will not peel off, revealing the old self both new and unchanged, hiding just underneath. And he will not listen, like Íþróttaálfurinn himself didn't listen in his time. He will learn on his own, one day, that storms break and transform and disfigure, and leave it to time to sand off the rough edges. That change is the unfortunate, inevitable nature of storms.

"I cannot," he says only, like the fault of it rests on his shoulders. And maybe, in a way, it does. "Done now, like this, it would be no different than boiling yourself alive again. No different than this, either." He nods with his chin to the gauze corner peeking from Glanni's sweater.

"No―you don't _get it_. I'm not _afraid_ , Íþró," Glanni presses, with that strange fervour in his voice. "You're touching me, and I'm not _afraid_. I cannot waste this chance―and you want to! I know you do, I've seen you. Since the start of our little game."

Íþróttaálfurinn's heart falls, right on that old pile of question that he spent all those months swallowing, hiding his care and longing from the wrong eyes. "I―you _knew_?"

"I'd have to be blind not to," the man says, with a bitter, dry chuckle. "Or as dense as you, I guess."

The alley rushes back to Íþróttaálfurinn's ringing ears. He thinks of Glanni's offers, now like back then, in this new light. _You gonna make an honest man out of me?_ the man asked in jest, when in truth his sharp eyes could see right through him, and have been seeing right through him the whole time.

"So now don't you lie to me, and take me for a fool, and try to tell me _exclusive rights_ doesn't sound like a sweet deal to you, _nemesis_."

Íþróttaálfurinn swallows. The words rolled in place, half-hissed, pink tongue through white teeth, full of promises, loaded with implications.

And it _does_ sound like a sweet deal, damn him and his preternatural intuition. It appeals to the ugly in him, the selfish, the restless. It all awakens now, roaring, a sticky weak thing crying _mine, all mine, only mine_ , in the voice of a child left behind, left nameless. For a moment, under the man's inescapable gaze, he feels so stripped he sees no outcome but the scathing shame of flight.

"See?" Glanni smiles like he won, curling closer, daring him to fall instead in the greedy hollow of his presence. "My mighty hero, and his dirty second motives. I like it, Íþró, I like you _crooked_."

Íþróttaálfurinn has never been the best at planning, the one with the best foresight, the best at thinking things through. He is of an instinctive breed, and his gut has never failed him.

And yet, and _yet_ , it wouldn't take much, this time, to convince himself it's for the better. There is so much of the old him in Glanni's calculating stare, in the way he can summon seduction at will, like a flicked switch. It would be easy, to think it's the right way to fix it. To tell himself that Glanni is wiser than he is, that even now―on his knees, his hands leaving stains and that desperate, fragile light in his eyes―he is lucid and in control and knows what he wants.

"Don't make a guy beg, Íþró," Glanni says, voice dripping honey. "I'm not used to it. Just come down here." He tilts his head back, drawing his eye over the bared pulseline until Íþróttaálfurinn can almost _taste_ it. "We'll both feel _so_ much better."

It shouldn't be like this, he thinks, guts twisting. Glanni's eyes are bright, glittering with hard, bitter triumph; but in his voice, Íþróttaálfurinn can only taste the desperation, like bile in his throat, pushing up, pushing in, a question swallowed that just won't stay down. _Will you be one of them?_ it asks. _Will you be the fourth to break an oath on me?_

And oh, he's sure he could make it tender enough to fool himself, mask with loving words the harm he's doing, the advantages he's taking, bury his face in that inviting neck and taste the flutter of his pulse and pretend he doesn't see the chasm opening under them both. Slowly, painfully, he lets go of Glanni's wrists.

"No, we won't―neither of us, and especially you," he says, taking a moment, this time only, to think of the after. This one time, it's a matter of life and death. "Not like this. It's not right. It's not why I'm trying to help."

He thinks of impending disaster and the benevolent, welcoming attic sullied with misery and sour, cooling sweat. He thinks of the pretend-sleep, the avoiding glances. Of the inevitable, bitter parting. Of coal mines, crumbling, and unseen wounds, ripped open before they can heal.

"But you _did_ think about it," Glanni says, brow clouding in incomprehension. "You're thinking about it right now. You _want to_."

"It doesn't matter what _I_ want. It's too soon, and you…" His voice fizzles out, he has to clear it, switch his knees and shift his weight just to end up in the same spot, to the inevitable confrontation. "I don't think you are in your right mind for _any_ of this."

The triumph dies in the man's eyes, like a light going out. The frown pulls Glanni's whole face in a hard, unpleasant grimace.

"You don't get to _decide_ that," he snarls, flushing red in angry splotches, feral creases on the bridge of his nose and teeth bared, his voice growling low. "You think you get to decide what's best for everyone?"

"I don't! I just… I don't want you to pick me because I'm _willing,_ and you have no alternatives―"

"Then what is _this_? What do you want? What _game_ are you playing?"

"No games! I didn't save your life just to use you myself, Glanni. You're not a spoil of war!"

He realizes, then, that his hands are clasping the other just above the elbows, pressing his arms flush into his sides. He doesn't know exactly how forceful the gesture was, but hurries to pull away all the same.

Quietly, he breathes out, "You deserve better than that."

"And _what_ do I deserve, pray tell?" Glanni asks, with a stubborn sort of defiance, eyeing him warily. But there's no fight in him anymore, and Íþróttaálfurinn doesn't know where it all went.

"I don't know," he murmurs, opening his arms. "Not forcing yourself to indulge anyone's second motives, for starters? And then… good things. To feel safe, to have friends. To feel cared for."

The man narrows his eyes, staring, the wariness outweighed by disbelief.

"You… want me to feel… cared for," he repeats. "Is this just because I was…?"

"No. They have nothing to do with it," Íþróttaálfurinn hurries to say, shaking his head. He doesn't know what he's admitting, exactly, but it comes out of him like water trickling from cupped hands. "I've… stopped seeing you as an enemy long before that alley."

He remembers now, one of the first signs. They made an escape together, one time, just like in the movies―as the children say―out of a window and up a rope. He held Glanni against him and felt invincible, their enemies disappearing behind as they rode away on a fateful gust of wind. And when manoeuvring required both of his hands, he didn't want to let go. There, in the air full of excited gasps and startled laughter, he discovered he liked being allies more than he liked enmity, that he liked the spirit of this villain more than a lot of his fellow heroes. That the children had been right about him all along.

"But the alley made me realize… when the trail brought me to you, I was―terrified," he starts to say, surprising himself with the fearless openness in his voice. "I was _certain_ I had been too late… and I pictured how it would be. How I would try to go on and―how my world would be different, without you in it. I hadn't felt that lost in a while. And then you were alive, and you put in me all this trust you don't have. And it changed me. I just had to… come to terms with it."

He wonders if the man, stunned to silence before him, is thinking of the same memory. Something is dawning on him, Íþróttaálfurinn can tell. Something that frightens him.

Slowly, he says, "To terms with… your care."

The elf can only nod. Glanni shakes his head, contradicting him through gesture as words fail to convey his incredulity.

"Care as in… feelings. Not just sex. You're talking _feelings_ feelings."

Íþróttaálfurinn finds himself, suddenly, breathless.

For all he tried to avoid it, he has fallen right in and the weight of Glanni's presence sucked all the air from the room. He could tell him he'd want to care for any creature in need, and hide himself behind his duty to humankind―but this is different, and it's time, it seems, for them both to know.

"Yes," he whispers.

The expression on Glanni's face, for the span of a few heartbeats, tells him nothing. It's alien to him, trust as more than the absence of fear. He doesn't know what to do with Íþróttaálfurinn's confession, more burden than gift in his eyes. A heavy truth he never offered to carry.

"I'm a bad pick for a date, Íþró," he says, making a wide, lost, helpless gesture. "These things, I don't—I'm bad at… I don't _do_ ―I don't even have _friends_. I live on the run. I don't know _what_ you want or how to give it to you―I don't know _shit_."

"It doesn't matter," he reassures, trying to contain the mounting panic in both of them. "I don't need―or want anything right now. I just―it would have been disingenuous to lie to you, that's all. So now you know."

He rises to his feet, finally, and Íþróttaálfurinn breathes in relief, following him.

"You're being… _soft_ ," he says, incredulous. "Right now, I could be up to anything, and you'd just _believe_ me." He shifts. "Really, how do you know I'm not playing you right now?"

"I don't."

Then, Glanni's arm shoots up, and he opens the skylight. Íþróttaálfurinn lets out a gasp of surprise when the miniature avalanche falls on him. He looks up to the other, baffled, his arms open.

The man is grinning some weary shadow of a grin, mirroring his pose, the snow in little piles on his head and arms. He collects it, cleans his hands, dries them on one of the rags. He comes closer and Íþróttaálfurinn lets him, doesn't step away when his gaze drops low, when his clever hands clean the smudges from his hips with the damp cloth.

The night streams in, cold and snow-bright, from the open glass, and the elf finds himself breathing easier. The sky is white as cotton still, no stars in sight, but it is sky nonetheless.

"There. All better now, right?" Glanni asks, with that gruff sheepishness that all his rare apologies have. The candle goes out when he closes the skylight, snuffed out by the current.

"Yes," Íþróttaálfurinn says low. "All better."

"I'm… sorry. I think." Glanni shakes the marked rag, in a jerky, nervous movement. "Didn't mean to come on this strong. I just thought―"

Íþróttaálfurinn watches his fingers curl over the rag, his weight hang on the idea of a step back, his shifty gaze fighting to come up and meet his. Íþróttaálfurinn steps forward, his arms coming up over Glanni's, waiting for him to step into the embrace before draping slow around him. He's shivering.

"It was a misunderstanding," he says, daring to brush his lips there where his mouth falls, stroking the man's back through the minute startle of affection. "No harm done."

"I just… never know what people want from me, you know? I keep trying to go with what I know and. Well."

"It's not working, is it."

"Nothing's working. I don't get it," he mutters. "When it happened, I didn't need to―to cry or anything… I was okay. I got up and planned my escape and went my way. And almost died of exposure, yes," he adds before the elf can even inhale. "But that's beside the point. I was _fine_ ―I thought I had handled it. That it wasn't gonna bother me. That I moved so fast I left it behind, right?"

Íþróttaálfurinn looks at him, swallowing the tightness in his throat.

"Right," he chokes out, thinking of the two of them, two foolish men with the same wrong idea.

"And instead… everything is still here, waiting. Fucking me up where I least expect it. Can't look at a picture without throwing up, can't hear a siren without freaking out―it's some Samarra bullshit."

"Survival will do that," Íþróttaálfurinn says. "It's useful, you push everything into this little box, and it stays there until you're out of immediate danger. And it waits."

"Why doesn't that work? Can't it just stay in the box? I must have, like, a collection of those."

Íþróttaálfurinn shakes his head. "Unless you open it, it's not gone. And it rots, if you wait too long. That's how these things happen." He brushes a finger over the gauze, barely touching. "If you leave it in there, in time… it poisons everything."

Glanni gives him a tilted glance. Then something settles on his features, the resolve of a man who never does things halfway.

"I'm just gonna rip it open, then." Like a reluctant witness about to rat out his accomplices, he says, "Give you some more truth you didn't ask to carry."

Íþróttaálfurinn's chest floods in relief. "I'll carry it."

It's story-time, and Glanni stands a little taller, holds out his hand, and the elf takes it without hesitation. Glanni lifts their joined hands, like initiating a dance, and Íþróttaálfurinn shifts his weight in preparation. Tragedy was, after all, always meant to be on a stage.

"I thought I could talk my way out of it, you know?" he starts, moving an experimental step forward. The elf readily follows. "That's what I'm good at. I thought I had it."

And the unthinkable lifts its ugly head, sitting up on its haunches, at attention, looming huge all around them. Glanni talks of the power of his voice, taking a step back for Íþróttaálfurinn to pursue. The floorboards creak under their light steps, and Íþróttaálfurinn isn't apt at this dance but he tries not to show it. At the fragile edge of this moment, there is no space for hesitation.

"I've seen you talk your way out of difficult spots, before," he says, following, slipping praise in the breathing spaces that keep the thing from pouncing. "You have a knack for it."

Glanni bows his head, a street magician shying from praise, _no, please, you're too kind_. He threads their hands together, spins him once, and pulls Íþróttaálfurinn's hand up, until the elf's palm cups his throat.

He manoeuvres it, long fingers pressing on the back of his knuckles like playing an instrument. It reminds the elf of learning to fly, the steady hand of the flight-master guiding his, searching for a good wind in the tautness of rope.

"I knew it was coming for me, you know? Could see those long fins, swimming nearer and nearer. But I was so sure of myself that I waited, seeing if I could get something more out of my stay. I've been in the business a while now, in and out of prison for all these years without anything ever happening to me… was too good to last, I guess."

"Occupational hazards," Íþróttaálfurinn murmurs, voice tight.

Glanni finds what he was looking for. A current in his blood, pulsing so fast it's almost a vibration, a gasp and stutter in his form, faltering. Lightheaded, Íþróttaálfurinn realizes his guided fingers have been following the ghost of the marks around his throat.

"I made sure they found me ready, played my cards close, ready to leverage all I could. And I did, until the last moment. Promises, lies, blackmail―anything I could think of." He pauses, swallows, Adam's apple sliding swift against Íþróttaálfurinn's palm. "They were pinning me down, and I was still talking―I _really_ thought I could make it out. I didn't want to believe it."

Under the elf's hand, the pulse picks up further, now a flutter of trapped wings. His heart hurts to imagine it, that wavering note in Glanni's voice, when he's trying his hardest to stay in control, how he can talk for hours, weave words into snares, keep track of all the scattered lies that create a truth. All for naught, and the moment he knew that there was no escape… distantly, Íþróttaálfurinn realizes his hand is shaking, too.

Glanni speaks, quieter. "They got fed up with my yammering, I suppose. His hand moved and it just,"―he pushes hard on Íþróttaálfurinn's hand, until the elf has to resist, refusing to grip him too tight―"and all the aces fell out my sleeve. All my words, choked down. Something shifted―like when the wind changes, and you can smell a storm coming? And suddenly I _knew_. It felt… _inevitable_. Scariest thing I've been through."

Íþróttaálfurinn shudders, thinking of all the fragile things that could have been damaged in that handful of bone and cartilage. He shifts his hand under Glanni's, until he has a light hold of his neck. A caress and not a death-grip. Glanni lets him.

"Then he _bit_ me and―I just froze. I went away, somewhere else. Let them do what they wanted. Could tell I'm… practiced, they said, and _laughed_." The crack in his voice strikes like lightning through the elf's chest. "Kind of had it coming, I guess."

"No," he breathes, in the hollow resonance of Glanni's voice. "It shouldn't have happened. It wasn't your fault."

"But I _knew_ ," Glanni hisses. "And I still couldn't find a way to avoid it. Like an _idiot_."

His free arm has come around the man's middle, dance-steps mellowed to a slow, steady rocking, and he doesn't know if he asked for permission with words or with his hesitation only. Pulling close, his mouth comes to rest against the sharpness of a clavicle, softened just barely by the fabric of the sweater, like teeth behind lips.

"Nobody deserves to be hurt like that," he says, willing his voice steady. It's all in his throat, coming out pained and open, again in the direct language that calms frightened children. "You didn't deserve it. You don't deserve bad things to happen to you."

He strokes with his thumb, drawing light, careful circles, feeling the man shiver against him. He holds the throat like it has a weight of its own, and he wonder if maybe he will be the one to buckle under the weight of a trust too great to bear.

"They broke something," Glanni murmurs, in a small, wounded voice. "I don't know what… but something is not the same." Slowly, he moves Íþróttaálfurinn's hand to his upper back, to the slight bumps under the gauze and knitwear. "Every time someone touches me here, I jump. I go back there, for a moment. Feel it all over again. Hear them laugh again."

They are directly under the freed skylight, and Íþróttaálfurinn sighs. As he traces lightly over the semi-healed marks, his eyes start burning. But he must not give in. It wouldn't be helpful, to crumble on someone holding onto him for strength.

"You did make it out alive. You survived, they didn't. You still win."

"Only because of _you_."

"I'm on your side, so you still win."

For a while, neither of them moves. Standing, breathing, and holding on takes all they have.

Then, Glanni asks, "Do you still get lost in the coal mines, after all these years?"

Íþróttaálfurinn tightens his lips. "Yes," he answers, where a lie would bring ease, but only truth can aid the healing. "But it's not the same, I can't say how it will be for you―mine is so much older, and so many people helped me with it. And I barely knew my old self, so I don't miss him. It's distant, like an old wound that healed okay."

"Only hurts when the weather changes, and on the holidays," Glanni says, stuttering out a laugh when the elf nods. "And when your nemesis visits unannounced."

"Oh," he murmurs, chest squeezing at the worry there. "No, not this time."

"I'm―not fine, am I?" Glanni chokes out, voice disappearing into breath. "Can't talk my way out of this one. And you can't fix me."

The elf shakes his head, his hair brushing light into the crook of Glanni's neck. Glanni curves over him, hunching his shoulders until his chin rests grave against the elf's shoulder, sinking in the embrace.

"But you fixed _everyone_ in town," he says, almost sullen.

"It's not the same," Íþróttaálfurinn sighs. "Wouldn't it be scary, if I had that kind of power? Nothing can have it, no water, or fire, or hero."

His hand rubs over his back, between the tips of his shoulder-blades, up in the short crop of his hair. He wants to brush his lips on the bare, healing skin, lay a gentle word on every violent mark. Show him there's nothing ruined in him, nothing to clean, nothing to hide.

"Who _the fuck_ has it, then?"

"Just you."

" _Goddammit_ ―"

"But I won't leave you to do it all alone. I owe it to you."

Glanni leans back to look him in the eye.

"You… think it's on you," he says, slowly, lucid calculation back in his voice, still trying to understand every angle of his motives. And this time, he is dangerously close. "You still think it's all _your_ fault."

"It _was_ my fault," he breathes out. And all the rest gets stuck behind those spilled words, crowded unseen behind his teeth, so heavy he cannot speak anymore.

" _Íþró_ ," Glanni says, the same way Íþróttaálfurinn told him, _oh, you idiot,_ and cups his face with both hands. _What has gotten into you, elf?_ Glanni asked him, as Íþróttaálfurinn crumbled in a horrified heap, the night he loaned time.

"I would have taken responsibility," Íþróttaálfurinn blurts out, choked up. He feels like his chest is going to burst. "I could have been faster, I could have spared you―"

"Would you have broken into a _prison_? Just to―"

" _Yes_!"

"… oh." A pause. An inhale. A glimmer of understanding. "Shit, you _do_ care."

The hard edge of the clavicle bumps into his teeth, muffling him, as Glanni's arms come up around his head, forceful, almost harsh. Íþróttaálfurinn _breaks_.

"If I had listened―if only I had been closer, my crystal would have told me―and instead I was so _late_ , and you were almost killed… I wanted to be there for you―and I _couldn't_ ―"

"Hush," Glanni orders. "You aren't responsible for me; I can look out for myself. Well… most of the time." He huffs a chuckle, talking of self-reliance with a challenge in his eye, as though daring for him to tell him, _sure, and look at how you ended up._ "If it wasn't my fault, it wasn't yours either. It's not on you, Íþró. It's not on you."

"Why are _you_ reassuring _me_?" he says, with an edge of whine in his voice. And the relief _is_ there, damn it. It's a weight that floats off, to hear a human say he doesn't have power of life and death and decision over him.

"Because I'm here, and― _I'm the one you've got_?" Glanni says, in English, altering oddly what Íþróttaálfurinn whispered into his hair that night, like the language of care was as foreign as a foreign tongue, and couldn't be spoken in the common words between them. Too close, too knowing. "If neither of us is fine, and we're the only ones here, then we have to make do, right?"

He pictures the two of them, cut away from the present, meeting in the place his lost hours went. Glanni seems again a giant in his eyes, so tall and beautiful, with his dark hair and the mournful grey in his eyes. So brave, and fragile. He hesitates, his thumb barely daring to stroke the edge of Glanni's jaw.

"You aren't such a bad pick," he says.

"No, I… really am. Probably… the worst pick."

"Now who's flattering himself?" he teases. Then, he shoots for reassurance, and lands on a plea, "I don't care, really. Just let me help, without all that in the way. Let me be selfish."

And there it is, the glass in his eyes, that breakable thing so raw, so close to the surface, looking back at him bare and afraid. It isn't the thing to say to human men, who loathe feeling small and breakable, who cannot bear to be reminded of their own fragility.

"You are _so_ bad at selling time," Glanni tells him, with a huffed laugh and some hopeful warmth glinting in his eyes. "Especially your own."

"Consider it another Christmas present, then," he says. Briefly, he wonders what sort of hero has he become, wrapping time like a gift. "Let's go back to sleep?"

Glanni nods. Shyer than before, stripped of its lustre of confidence, a long hand curls slow around his. It doesn't feel rough anymore.

* * *

"You shouldn't have to do this, really," Glanni mutters, with all the firmness he can muster at the moment, and no little amount of guilt filtering through. "It's _fucking_ Christmas. You were already busy sulking tonight. Lost in your coal mines and shit."

Íþróttaálfurinn snorts, adjusting his position slightly on the narrow couch. "I wasn't _sulking_."

"And here you are, instead," Glanni continues, ignoring him. "Patching up insomniac outlaws, then spooning them out of their misery, feeling guilty about shit you have no business feeling guilty over…"

 _Are you sure about this_ , Glanni has already asked him, at least five or six times.

 _Yes, absolutely_ , he replied unflinchingly, as the man lay so tense in his hold he feared his body might be asking to be let go, that this might be too much, with him pressed up against his back like this.

"Don't worry about it." Haltingly, he smoothens down Glanni's sweater where it bunches up on his side, feeling the frayed fabric and the tension underneath. "It's what I do."

Glanni cranes his neck to face him, faint blush and tired, over-bright eyes doing nothing to undermine the sheer scepticism on his face.

"Okay, usually with less spooning," he says, and thank the Elders, Glanni cracks a smile. "That's only for my worst enemy."

"You won't be able to fix it like this every time, though," he says, sobering immediately. "Someday you won't be here, or," his voice pinches, dying away in a breath, "or it won't be enough. And then I―"

"I know," he reassures. "But if something works for now, no harm in using it. We can figure out the rest when the time comes."

The man turns back, breathing out, his hands gesturing over the edge of the couch.

"But _why_ ," Glanni asks, voice full of so much incomprehension still, it makes him ache. "Why do this for me? You're into me, but don't want sex. You feel guilty, but this won't appease it. I'm in more debt with you than I've ever been, but you say you owe _me_ , and want nothing in return―I don't get it."

"What did you think I—?"

"I don't know," the man mumbles, "some weird sort of guilt-induced watered down pity-fuck… or something."

"Oh dear, no."

"A pity-spoon?"

"Glæpur."

He is distracted for a moment with the way in which, even with how alien the language of affection seems to be for the man, he turned in his arms and let them trace his side as he turned, grazing the dip of his ribcage. Simple, natural, like breathing.

"This is not a _favour_ ," he says, gently pulling closer. "Or pity. Or anything of the sort. I just want to do it. I would want to do it anyway. Whenever you like… if you'd like. But for now, you said it helps, and I want to help."

He's starting to understand how things work, in the harsh shadowy world Glanni inhabits, where everything deals in debt and onus, and kindness has no place but as a calculated favour. He's grateful, actually, that the man is letting him take care of him. It's a favour for _him_ , in a way. But an admission like that… it's a present for another Christmas.

"So what, do I just― _ask_?" Glanni says, like it's ridiculous. " _Hey, Íþró, I'm having a hard time, come cradle me in your strong hero arms, all night, without a single naughty thought crossing your mind? Save me from my own bad choices, kiss all the nightmares away?_ "

Íþróttaálfurinn snorts. "Yes," he manages, somehow, to deadpan. "That's precisely what you do."

"This isn't―" Glanni starts, serious. "Íþró, this isn't the kind of thing I can just _ask_ for."

"You could make a gesture," the elf says, putting the aside all the painful _whys_ that rise in him. "Use a code-word. Just maybe remember it, this time."

The doubts don't leave the man's face, even masked with the irreverent sneer he pulls. He tries a few increasingly ridiculous code-words, but Íþróttaálfurinn doesn't miss the way he still twitches in tension every time one of them shifts.

"Whenever I like, you say. As in, it would be the same to you if I had, like, a broken leg?" he asks, then. "If I got ran over, or shot, or stabbed―you would take care of it just the same?"

The unthinkable looms above them, scary and monstrous, a spectre but stronger still, grazing them with its invading, coaly hands.

"Even a paper-cut, Glæpur," Íþróttaálfurinn assures, curving in protectively, sending out a hope that none of those ever happen. In a careful understatement, he says, "I just… you know, prefer to have you all in one piece, in general. In the smallest amount of pain possible. Or none, preferably. And hold you because you feel like being held. That'd be neat, too."

He's the one rambling now, his eyes downcast even though the man has his back to him again. He pauses, and Glanni doesn't turn to sneer at him. Maybe, the absence of a pain quota to fulfil before receiving closeness is too alien a concept, the final straw in this night of strangeness.

"… huh," Glanni says only.

Then, under Íþróttaálfurinn's hands, limb by limb, all the tension melts away. Glanni lets out a sigh that sounds like he had been holding his breath for hours.

Íþróttaálfurinn draws a sigh of relief of his own, and leans in, to kiss him lightly behind the ear. "Away go the nightmares."

Glanni lifts a hand and traces the edge of his hairline, shivering. "S-so, why do you kiss here all the time? Is it a thing?"

 _All the time?_ "It's… where the tip of your ear would be, if you were an elf."

"Sorry I only got lame round ears to offer."

Íþróttaálfurinn coughs. "They… they're pretty charming, actually."

"… huh."

After a pause, he finds his voice again.

"Listen, if I can just… _ask_ ," Glanni starts, haltingly, like he's getting used to a seriously ludicrous idea, "can I ask you to―could you…" He nudges down the collar of his shirt. "Can you send them away from here, too?"

 _If only I could_ , Íþróttaálfurinn thinks, touched. Now, he is the _seiðman_ , banishing evil through his touch alone. _If only_.

He bows his head and places a slow, careful kiss on Glanni's shoulder. The man gasps, curling in on himself, clutching his forearm tight with all of his long fingers, keeping them both anchored. His pulse is racing, panicked wings trapped in his cradling hands. This must be too much, he thinks. An elf can't make a good _seiðman._

"Should I…?"

Glanni is silent. He answers only when Íþróttaálfurinn makes to pull away.

"… no," he murmurs, pressing back into him. "Please."

Íþróttaálfurinn kisses his back until he's trembling too hard for him to control the pressure, and his lips tingle from the herbal tang of the salve. Then, he just holds, and strokes, and soothes, as they both lie speechless and heaving, scared of the boundary just stepped over, tall as a cliff behind them.

After a while, Glanni speaks again.

"I haven't cried since the last time I saw your stupid face," he tells him, half sullen, half like he's expecting praise.

"I get that a lot," Íþróttaálfurinn says, and the man makes a choked noise, like a wet guffaw. "How do you feel?"

"Like _shit_. But also… I don't know, lighter."

"… thank you," Íþróttaálfurinn says, once more, without knowing why.

The man snorts. "The hell?"

"Our interests do align, after all," Íþróttaálfurinn murmurs, trying to deflect his embarrassment. "I was lost in my coal mines tonight, even before seeing you." He glances up at the snowfall, now visible out the cleared window. "So, really, you're the one that helped me."

"That makes no fucking sense," Glanni says earnestly, though his voice is cracking, still reeling with the experience. "But it's awfully convenient, so I'll take it."

Íþróttaálfurinn grins. "Good."

"So, this is not only the first―but also the weirdest Christmas present I've ever given," he laughs. Íþróttaálfurinn can't help but shift closer, curving over him, body an arch of kindness.

"You're going to have a hard time topping it, next year," he says.

It might have been a mistake, a shot in the dark, a shot in the future. He falls quiet, swallowing.

Slowly, Glanni turns all the way in his arms, pushing against him until Íþróttaálfurinn rolls on his back, throwing the covers in disarray.

"If the game is over now, what―" Glanni says haltingly, brushing the dried tear-tracks across the bridge of his nose. "Now I don't know what's left for us."

Ideas crowd the elf's mind, uncalled for. Rosy visions of the future, redemption and collaboration, and snowflakes in Glanni's eyelashes. He daren't express any of them. Not now, not yet. Not with everything still so fragile, held in balance by the snow-bright, cocooning darkness, by the weight of their confessions.

"I consider the truce on-going," Íþróttaálfurinn says, pulling the covers up around Glanni's shoulders, as the man gingerly settles on his chest. "I won't call it off until you are back on your feet―and don't you try and fight me on this."

"… I wasn't gonna."

"Then, what's left is you, and rest and healing, and all the choices you can still make, when the time comes. Friendship, trust if you find it. Care―whatever it is we're doing now, if you will have it. Not asking anything of you, nor putting you in debt."

"Friendship," Glanni says, voice low, like uttering perjury. "Petty charm, I sure can do. Hell, I came back because I wanted to see if the city would have me, even without your help." A pause, in which the man has the grace to drop his eyes and look a little ashamed, if only for show. "But real _friendship_? I really don't know."

"Then let me lighten _your_ worldview, for once," he says. "No one fell for your petty charm. The children really care, they talk about you all the time. The Mayor told me himself he has faith in your future choices. Nobody wants you to feel like you're overstaying. Everyone is rooting for you."

"Are you?"

"I am first in line." He allows himself a tentative smile. "I would never leave my dear nemesis behind."

Glanni gives him a sidelong glance, and Íþróttaálfurinn's ears don't fail to betray him and heat up until they burn.

"I don't know how it works, any of this," he sighs. "I'm out of my depth. I keep thinking, _what the fuck are you doing, accepting all this_ kindness _willy-nilly?_ Like I'm just getting tangled with another whole breed of loanshark."

"I'm afraid, too," Íþróttaálfurinn whispers. "I don't think I'm supposed to get this personal with the towns in my care. But I can't help it―Latibær is special to me. And everyone in it. And you."

"Heroes and villains," Glanni whispers back, pensively.

A couple of minutes pass in silence, the elf counting heartbeats, the man deep in thought. Long enough for Íþróttaálfurinn to start to wonder how is Glanni fitting his feet under the cover, lying halfway down such a short couch. They must be freezing, he thinks, searching them with his own and then tugging until Glanni folds his knees higher, and lets him fit them between his shins.

"Alright," Glanni sighs, who apparently allowed this entire manoeuvre without really noticing, absentmindedly following Íþróttaálfurinn's nudging. "I… I guess I could try… not being the _worst_ pick ever. Where do I start?"

"Staying in this bed until morning, for example. Maybe―if I can make a wild suggestion―even sleep."

The man gives a little, sheepish shrug. "I see my fame still precedes me."

After that, he stays quiet for another long while. Maybe he was taken aback by the directness, maybe he's calculating his next move. Maybe, he's just as anxious as he says, just as anxious as Íþróttaálfurinn feels.

"So we aren't orphans anymore," Glanni says, almost bluntly. But the sentence still inflects, lifting at the end in a subtle, uncertain question mark. "We don't need to leave. We can stay here. Both of us, we got adopted."

Íþróttaálfurinn huffs out a single, teary chuckle. "We keep getting last minute Christmas presents."

"Seems we both lucked out, in the end."

The snow falls outside, soft now, the blizzard giving space to the vast and silent, to the seeds sleeping hidden. Íþróttaálfurinn, mind hazing into relaxation, allows himself a slow, affectionate squeeze. Surrounded in terrible moments, this one moment crystalizes in his mind as a crux of perfection.

"Your heart is trying to escape," Glanni tells him, fingers splaying slow in the middle of Íþróttaálfurinn's chest. Without any armour on, his broad palm is warm as a pool of sunlight. He is suddenly aware that this is the first time they are so close without any leather in between.

"It's nothing," he hurries to say, spying the worried stillness of the hand, Glanni's body starting to draw back even though he hasn't moved. "I'm just… happy. And incredulous."

"… huh."

The couch is stiff under Íþróttaálfurinn's back, their bodies squeezed tight in the narrow space. Yet, they fit, warm and slotting together in unexpected comfort, like they were always meant to cradle each other in warmth, encouraging the restoring sleep that tugs at their eyelids.

"I'm going to have to get you something else too, next year," Glanni murmurs, between a yawn and a slow, pleased stretch, leaning his chin on his folded arms. "I mean, aside from the _unmitigated_ pleasure of my company."

Íþróttaálfurinn lets out a soft huff. "I liked the chamomile," he mumbles, already drifting off. "I like that you made it. No lemon, next time."

He feels Glanni's shoulders vibrate with laughter.

"That's not a _present_ present. How about this." And quietly, he croons, " _Baby, I've been here before, I've seen this room and I've walked this floor._ " He glances up, drawing the attic into his intimate, whispered solo, summoning playfulness out of thin air, easy as breathing. " _I used to live alone before I knew ya_."

Then he leans over, and kisses him light on the lips. It is a hesitant, fragile thing, dry and soundless. Not red or tangy, not desperate, not delirious enough to be forgotten. There is no tide of emotion filling Íþróttaálfurinn's heart, but rather an ebbing, quiet stillness, like a sea made oil-smooth by the night. He breathes out, and the restlessness exhales out of him all at once, melted away, banished.

"Perfect," he whispers, and he can _feel_ Glanni beaming, even with his eyes closed.

His fingers move slow as he drifts to sleep, through the short black hair that catches the glow of the white sky, soft like wind-swept grass. He holds his treasure in his arms, hears him sigh that peaceful, humming note.

And the sacred forest of overhead beams whispers, _hallelujah._

* * *

Notes: Yes they are actually gonna sleep this time. (!)  
Just the epilogue left!

Chapter title from The XX's _Say Something Loving._


	8. Epilogue - Shore

Decisions, elven senses, and the laziest, mushiest morning after.

* * *

Morning skitters by, quick and startling like a snake in the grass.

The air changes taste and density, the skylight going from the rich darkness of night to the washed-out, lingering dimness of winter morning. Íþróttaálfurinn, who usually vaults lightning-quick over the threshold of consciousness, comes awake in starts and sputters, limbs heavy with a strange, unfamiliar lethargy.

More than once his eyes have come open, but just half-way, reality blurring into whispers of dreams. First, vast fields of mallow and lavender, spreading in the pink summer dawn under his eyelids, tall rows of cypresses filling his nostrils in the haze of half-sleep. He squeezes the warm bundle in his arms and drifts deeper, humming with relief.

Next, he dreams of a black cat. It naps in a sunbeam, dark fur shimmering with each slow inhale in the soft golden light that dapples the wooden windowsill. Íþróttaálfurinn extends a hand to stroke it, and the hand is not his, worn and wrinkled and achingly familiar. The stray opens its transparent grey eyes that see right through him, and it seems to smile, just a little, a hint of mockery behind its white whiskers. Grandmother, just like him, must have loved her strays.

Then, he tosses on his side, the physical weight lifted off him traded for a heavy feeling that spreads in its place. He shifts uncomfortably in that disturbing lightness, the subconscious awareness of absence, refusing to come awake and face it, not now, not yet.

The cat bolts off the windowsill and the dream darkens, the summer fields eaten by a mist as dense as smoke. He runs in circles through the dark tunnels, chasing that unfathomable sense of loss, the setting sun glistening in its black fur.

* * *

Íþróttaálfurinn's eyes feel glued shut.

When he rubs his face with his forearm, he feels the dampness on his eyelashes, like grass in the morning dew. The energy that bubbles up in him is nothing but the other kind, the jitter and restlessness pulling him awake in harsh, jerking motions. How can he be restless when barely awake, he wonders? And yet he is, and his empty hands curl helpless with a memory of hold―but the bad dream was real, and he is _gone_ ―

"Sheesh, a _moment_ , you impatient―hey!" a voice says gruffly, and Íþróttaálfurinn shoots up with a startle when a shock of scalding ceramic touches his raised hand.

He looks up, confused, and meets grey eyes, ruffled hair, and raised eyebrows.

"Glanni," he croaks, after a long processing pause, voice hoarse from that strange and stuttering sleep. His feet are cold, he realizes: at some point he must have flung the covers away.

"Hey," his nemesis greets, eyeing him cautiously.

What an incongruous sight, Glanni Glæpur in the morning. Real and present in the dimness of day. Íþróttaálfurinn stares up at him, mute and awed and slowly blinking awake, for a long, long moment. Deep in his marrow, the jitteriness ebbs away like a tide receding.

"Make up your damn mind, elf, you want this or not?"

Finally, he notices the mug being handed to him―and for a moment he's certain Glanni's figure is backlit by the orange glow of a streetlamp instead of the pale grey of the skylight. He takes the mug, mechanically.

"… huh?" he only manages.

"She says you drink this," Glanni says, brows furrowed. "But don't ask me what the hell is in there, it smells like wet grass and I want nothing to do with it."

It sounds like an explanation, but for the life of him Íþróttaálfurinn cannot process _how_. He glances down at the steaming cup of plain herbal tea.

"Who says…?"

"Gran. Siggi's gran. Has insomnia, is surprisingly blasé about harbouring criminals, almost poisoned you that one time and told me three times about it… ring any bells?"

"Uh," is, again, all he can articulate. "You went downstairs… to get me tea?"

Glanni's nose scrunches up between disgust and derision. "Psh, _no_. I wanted coffee, obviously. For myself." He hastily lifts the mug in his other hand, spilling a few drops down the side of it. Very casually, he licks them away. "I asked you if you wanted anything and you grunted, so here you are. Also, she had asked me if I could look at her oven and kettle yesterday, so I did."

Íþróttaálfurinn just blinks, letting the ceramic warm up his empty palms. He stares into the greenish liquid, clouded thoughts escaping him like the bits of leaf scattered in the infusion. He looks back up, quite unable to stop looking at him, marvelling at his presence, not after waking up already mourning his absence. Then, a worrying thought starts to take vague form.

He asks, "How… how long have you been up?"

Glanni shifts, taking a deliberately long sip. "A while."

"But did you sleep at all?"

Another long, evasive sip. "Sorta."

"Glanni."

"I'm a light sleeper, alright? I'll take what I can get. Be grateful I left you to your weird dreams."

 _Oh_. Íþróttaálfurinn bites his lip, bowing his head in apology. "I see. I kept you awake."

Glanni regards him with an inscrutable look, head tilted to the side. "Why, does it matter?"

Íþróttaálfurinn can't think of anything to say. Under his darting eyes, the man grows hesitant, smile dimming, hand holding his mug lowering, like he's debating something with himself. He's trying to work out what the problem is, the elf grasps.

"Well," Glanni starts after proper rumination. "What is it, it's not like we were supposed to wake up together and all that, right?"

Íþróttaálfurinn hesitates. It's too early in the morning, and his sleep cycle is too far gone for his face not to betray him.

"Of… course not," he pushes out, and his nemesis' eyebrows rise so high they brush his short fringe.

The awkward pause that follows, the elf fills with picking up the blankets one-handed. Glanni clears his throat.

"Hey, uh, know what?" he starts, plucking the untouched mug from his hand before he can spill it, and setting it down next to the couch along with his own. Very quietly, meeting his eye only with a darting glance, he says, "I was… it's still early and I _was_ kinda hoping to get back into bed for a spell, actually, yeah."

A shock runs through Íþróttaálfurinn's body. "Of course!" He makes to spring up. "Let me―I'll give you back your couch, and―"

"No―! Stay, I meant―oh fuck it," Glanni stammers, giving up on verbal communication and unceremoniously dropping seated on the elf's stomach. "There, stay where you are."

"W―but you said…" Íþróttaálfurinn starts, frozen in confusion. "… _oh_."

"Yeah," Glanni says, both palms on his face. "You won't even let me _try_ to be smooth, will you."

"I didn't want to assume―"

"Shut it."

The elf shuts it. This position really isn't much of a strain, anyway. He only has to shift slightly so that Glanni's sit bones don't stab him through the gut, then it's fine, almost comfortable. The flexing of his abs is enough to make the other bounce, tearing from him a weird nasal guffaw.

Glanni clears his throat. "You… really wanted us to wake up together."

A brief fantasy of gentle hands and sleep-dazed grey smothers the instinctive _no I didn't_ that crowds behind Íþróttaálfurinn's teeth.

Shifting slowly, folding himself inch by inch, Glanni lies down on his side. His head comes to rest beside the elf's at an angle that masterfully prevents eye contact. His legs dangle off the couch. Íþróttaálfurinn, almost incredulous, gently nudges his shoulder off his windpipe.

"You're here," he says, and it doesn't matter if it makes little sense.

"I am," Glanni replies, matter-of-fact, as though he himself were surprised.

"But I've asked so much of you already." He swallows emptily in the pause that follows.

"It's not like that."

"How is it, then?"

"It would just―be new, you know? Too new." He lifts on one elbow to pull the covers over them. Settling back down, he wiggles a bit, pressing into Íþróttaálfurinn's chest like it's an uncomfortable new mattress. "I've never… I don't think I've ever woken up with someone―you know, without first…"

"No, me either."

"A first for everything, I guess," Glanni says with a nervous chuckle. Then, he sighs. "Íþró, I'll never remember how to do all these things. It's never gonna come natural. You'll have to remind me every damn time."

"It's fine. Doesn't have to be a chore," Íþróttaálfurinn whispers back. He lifts an arm, hovering light. "May I?"

His answer comes in a quick nod, almost furtive. Carefully, he wraps the arm around Glanni's waist, settling easy, squeezing light. The man lets out a breath, shallow and a little shaky.

"You sure you don't want the couch to yourself?"

"What for?"

"To try and sleep some more."

Glanni shrugs. Time ticks by, slow, too comfortable to disturb.

"Told you, doesn't really work. Like this, at least I can rest." His hand brushes slow over the elf's chest. "I can just… listen, and it's sort of calming. I guess."

Mornings aren't usually like this, for Íþróttaálfurinn. He's not the type to linger, to laze about without reason. But he also doesn't usually have a warm lapful of worst enemy draped across him, confessing that listening to his heartbeat eases his elusive rest.

"Oh," he murmurs, touched. In a moment, he grows eager to follow with a confession of his own. "I dreamt you had left."

When Glanni heaves a sigh, chest pushing into the elf's as it fills with air.

"I… don't think it was a dream," he admits, and Íþróttaálfurinn struggles not to tighten his hold. "I got up, and you sorta woke up but not really, and I thought I should go… and you caught me by the sleeve."

Íþróttaálfurinn swallows. He murmurs an apology. "What made you stay?"

"You let go when I pulled."

With his free hand, Íþróttaálfurinn tucks the covers around them, careful not to bump the fresh gauze on the man's upper back. After a while, Glanni relaxes against him, not completely, like an afterthought.

"You're good at this," he grumbles.

"Not really. I never get it when you try to be smooth." A large hand lifts and presses the side of his face away, a gestural _shut it_ , making him snort.

"But you _are_ good," Glanni says, in a different tone, more distant and pained. "You have seen so much, and yet you're still―" he halts, swallows. "I can't even do these simple things. You're so good, and I'll _ruin_ you."

The hand makes to leave his face, but Íþróttaálfurinn lifts his own and presses it. Denying that the man is made of ruin would be lying, he knows. Yet, he knows deep in himself that if this feeling climbed to the surface fighting his morals tooth and nail and emerged victorious, there must be a reason.

"Listen," he says, letting his hand brush down Glanni's arm until he can cup the side of his face. He tells him again everything he blurted out under the cover of darkness. It feels different now, stronger and calm and certain, like sap hardening to amber, bright and translucent in the cold light of morning. This, he says, is too solid to be easily ruined.

"Anything I need," Glanni echoes, like he's unaware that he's speaking. "I don't know what I need. And I don't know what _you_ need, either."

"That's fine. When you know, I'll know. For me, it's enough that you didn't leave."

"I just wasn't sure anymore." He moves, and when Íþróttaálfurinn looks down he meets the pleading look in his eyes. "And you―you _want_ me to stay, right?"

"Yes," he says simply.

"Okay," Glanni breathes. "Okay."

* * *

"I… you know, like last night?" he tries. "And like now? Can it… be just like that? Without… work in the way and―all the rest, too. You know, just for now. Like an agreement."

Glanni's right hand still lies in his, a loose twining of fingers, an idle tracing of patterns and half-formed letters. The man's head, close enough to his mouth that he could just arch his neck to kiss the two black whorls of hair that adorn it, rests easy on his chest. It's the sweetest weight that's ever been placed upon him.

"Of course," Íþróttaálfurinn says. "Anything."

Glanni shakes his head, and the elf's lips itch to smooth down his frown. He has a few creases on his face, from the folds of Íþróttaálfurinn's shirt.

"Can it really be so simple?" he asks, and somehow, the elf gets the feeling that he's really asking, _can it really be good?_ "I told you, I'm a bad p―"

"It's fine. You're fine. You're a good pick."

"See if you still believe that in a year."

"Give me the year, first."

Glanni lifts his head, meeting his eye. The anxious knit of his brows eases, eyes gleaming with a spark of challenge. And, just like that, shots in the future don't feel so scary anymore.

"Hm," he says, smirking. "I think I will."

* * *

"This place _could_ use a bit of work. Gonna be a cold one, they say," Glanni is saying.

He talks about the season like it's out to personally inconvenience him; he talks about the attic like he plans to be there a while. The light is growing paler, the dimness slowly giving into daylight, washing out the colours around them.

"But we have to start somewhere, the two of us, I suppose," Glanni says, and the warmth spreads inside Íþróttaálfurinn like a long, perfect draught of hot soup.

The house's old boards groan around them, creaking against the winter chill, and a marrow-deep feeling of oneness runs through Íþróttaálfurinn like a current, skin tingling with warmth, making him shiver.

He breathes, "I'd be delighted."

Something in his voice, just like out on the bench the previous night, makes a blush blossom from Glanni's ears down to his entire face.

"Uh," he stammers, looking away. "It's true, then. You really _have_ gone soft."

The elf lets out a snort. "To be quite honest with you," he says, stroking one bright red cheekbone with his thumb, "I believe I've been soft this entire time."

At the edge of his consciousness, something hinges. It's quick to topple over, when Glanni leans over him and brushes his lips against his, warm and dry like fresh linen. His hand lingers, cupping the man's jaw, as though he wanted to hold the twinkling light in his eyes.

Deep inside him, something cracks open, a sharp, intimate awareness of _where_. He feels connections to everything around him sprout and spread free, as though his back weren't pressed into a couch but directly into the soil, growing roots down to the molten core. The certainty is absolute, the world has become a treasure map, and he awoke lounging on the big bright X. It is a vast, ancestral, cosmic feeling, and he emerges on the other side of it breathless and reeling.

"Hey," Glanni calls, "what's happening? You gonna stroke out on me?"

Íþróttaálfurinn, barely able to speak over how full his chest feels, hurries to hold him there when he makes to get off him. He cups the man's face with both hands and he doesn't have any other words.

"Thank you," he breathes.

There must be something strange in his eyes, because Glanni urgently mirrors the gesture.

"What's gotten into you?" he asks, pressing intently on his cheeks.

He wants to explain it, he realizes, but he cannot. He draws their foreheads to touch. "Shhh," he murmurs. "Listen. Just listen."

The world is turning under them, and he can feel it, creaking and groaning like an old house. Everything moves, and he's lying down in this perfect place, his place, the place where he belongs. Not alone, never alone again. Part of the land and yet freer than ever, at the centre of everything, and the centre of himself.

They listen.

* * *

"Basically, you know where you are… in relation to other things," Glanni articulates slowly.

Íþróttaálfurinn who had never thought he would have to explain this particular sense―let alone the lack of it―to a non-elf, hopes his attempt at explanation made at least a shred of sense.

"So, is it like… when birds migrate and can find places again, or when turtles swim back to the shore they hatched on…?" Glanni mimics little scurrying steps with two fingers. "Only you didn't have a shore before… and this became your shore right now?"

Íþróttaálfurinn can't help a smile, stretching slow. "I have found my shore," he repeats, nodding, elated. And he thinks, how ironic, how it started with his heart breaking from loneliness, washed up on that black shore.

"I'm dating a baby turtle," Glanni laments, hands and eyes to the sky. "How… now I need to know _how the fuck_ did you find your way around until now, missing an entire damn sense."

"Compass."

Glanni smacks his forehead.

* * *

Christmas Day settles, slow and undisturbed, around them. Quietly, they talk of the day to come; between shy and roundabout, Glanni asks him how long _he_ is staying, wordlessly laying claim on him until he has to return to duty. Íþróttaálfurinn wants to treasure the tiny elated laugh that escapes him when he tells him they still have a full day and then some.

"I wonder what the kids are doing now," Íþróttaálfurinn asks, after some more time has ticked by, spent savouring those little flutters of excitement.

"They're doing the presents thing from last night, obviously?" Glanni sneers. "If they aren't already on the hunt."

"On the hunt?" He blinks. "Do they do treasure hunts at Christmas, too?"

"If your head is the treasure, sure."

Íþróttaálfurinn nearly gasps. "Oh f―that's right. I've been such an ass last night. I have to make it up to them someh―"

Then, with a surprisingly sharp noise that makes both of them jolt, a snowball splatters clear on the skylight.

"Speak of the tiniest little squad of devils," Glanni says. "Here to go Spanish Inquisition on you."

As if summoned, a chorus of high-pitched voices calls Íþróttaálfurinn's name from outside. Glanni, somehow, manages to bow while lying down.

Barely holding back the laughter, Íþróttaálfurinn takes him by the arms. "Come out with me, please."

"Sure, I'll be coming along." A wide, mischievous grin stretches on Glanni's lips. He rolls off him to stand, pointing dramatically. "Wouldn't want to miss seeing you get _torn to shreds_. You're on your own, nemesis, and nothing can save you now."

The elf rolls his eyes. "You're so supportive." He accepts the offered hand and springs upright. "Between the two of us, I'm undoubtedly the one who lucked out."

"Undoubtedly."

The evil grin, if possible, grows even wider.

"Well, then," Glanni drawls, arms open, sounding elated. "Merry _fucking_ Christmas to you, elf."

Íþróttaálfurinn returns the grin, though he has the feeling his own is more like a dopey smile and completely devoid of mischief.

"Merry Christmas to you, Glæpur."

* * *

Notes: Aaaaand done!

This... took a lot longer than expected.

This story came with me through an international move, started in a rickety one-room student housing apt and finished at the local library cause my new rickety apt doesn't have internet yet.

Dedicated to Rox, new old friend and Fairy Godmother from Hell of this story. The idea for a sequel was just a seedling and it probably would never have exploded to this size without her support ;;

Despite the subject matter, writing this was healing and at times fun. I wish I hadn't got stuck right at the end, but hey, imperfect is better than unfinished, rite?


End file.
